


The great empire of HIC

by Unda



Category: Homestuck
Genre: M/M, Mutual Pining, Piracy, Rebellion, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-31
Updated: 2019-07-31
Packaged: 2020-07-27 15:58:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 52,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20048707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unda/pseuds/Unda
Summary: Karkat Vantas has feelings that don't want to fit in any quadrant, so his plan is just ignore them, don't say anything about them, don't do anything about them and then one day he'll die. He fails at every part of that plan.





	The great empire of HIC

Sollux Captor is your best friend. He’s your best friend in the way that you can only make friends when you’re three sweeps old, which is to say that you like the same video games and he kept talking to you after you were an asshole to him. The pair of you simply decided that you were friends and then you were, it’s never that easy after that age but it got you together.

By the time you’re four you’ve discovered ROMANCE. Well, not discovered as such. You’re a troll, it’s everywhere in your culture, quadrants all over the place. The point is you’ve discovered romance as a genre, books, movies and so much more all dedicated to people with these amazing feelings getting together and falling apart and it’s fascinating. Sollux says it’s dumb and you say he’s an idiot and it escalates into a fight where when you’re over at his hive he erases your save files and you go home trying not to cry after calling him some especially awful things. Within the week you’re both made up because that’s how you are. You’re obsessed with romance and he’s not, it’s just a thing. Sometimes you brag that you’re just more mature than him which he takes with the total lack of grace you’ve come to expect from him. 

The thing is that then at least the whole thing just seemed so new and foreign to you. You were excited for it, it was all so dramatic and interesting. 

You have other friends of course and the great thing about them is they introduce you to more friends as you get older and know them better. You share a lot of common interests with Nepeta but it’s pretty plain from how she acts towards you that she has flushed feelings for you. At first that’s exciting because, duh, romance. But… when you try to think about how you feel for her it’s not clear at all. It’s nothing like in the movies or books. She’s your friend and she’s pretty enough for a girl, because girls are pretty universally terrifying or maybe it’s just the ones you know. So maybe pretty’s not the right word for her. Pretty suggests a certain fragility that a girl who disembowels wild animals five times her size doesn’t really have. 

All the same you feel awkward about her feelings so you try to stay at arms length from her when you can. It’s not for several perigees after that when you’re hanging out with Sollux and you watch his delicate fingers separate a newly hatched game grub from the pod he was growing it in after uploading his hacked together game on it do you think it. It’s the first time that it occurred to you and you still remember it. Obviously his psionics are dangerous, just as much as Nepeta and her claws, but when you look at Sollux you think that maybe pretty describes him in a way. 

You don’t tell him, you’re sure somehow that it’d be a bad idea. 

By the time you’re five your social circle is pretty well hammered out. There’s twelve of you all together and though Sollux is your oldest friend there’s a fair few other people who are close enough to you that they call you their best friend too. That’s pretty damn nice, actually. Nepeta still has her crush on you which you’re pretty adept at avoiding now and you’ve made an executive decision that you, Karkat Vantas, will have a romance. Hell Sollux has a girlfriend and he wasn’t even big on the romance thing. Aradia’s been his moirail for nearly half a sweep and you think that’s really nice. You like how important she is to him, how he talks about her but it makes you feel…

You don’t want to admit that you’re jealous but you are. You worry that she’ll take him away from you at first, but she doesn’t. Sollux still spends just as much time talking to you and seeing you as he did before. You wonder if maybe you’re jealous that she’s his moirail and you’re not but when you try to think of being just that to him you feel weird. So it makes sense then that you’re just jealous that he has someone and you don’t. 

With determination you resolve that Sollux Captor will no longer have more quadrants than you!

You’re successful in that endeavour in the worst possible way. Losing a friend is always hard, worse still to lose one to murder, even worse yet when the one doing the murder is another one of your friends. Sollux is a mess and obviously you help him put himself back together, you’re his best friend after all, but you can’t fix the pain of someone’s moirail dying. 

By the time you’re six Aradia has stopped haunting him and he’s able to fully heal which is a relief to you. You’re not sure how he’ll take to other people trying to have quadrants so you’ve been putting it off, or that’s what you tell yourself, but eventually you figure you have to go for it. Terezi is great, she’s sharp and beautiful, she’s funny and she’s never murdered anyone you know. That’s a new criteria you’ve added for people you want to date but it’s a good one you think. Terezi is an excellent person to choose to have a romantic relationship with, you’re just not sure yet what you want. Flush or pitch? Experimentally you try one, flirting with her all red and that’s nice but soon enough your feelings start becoming impossible to ignore in far blacker waters. That’s fine, people vacillate don’t they? Besides you’re still working it out, this is probably normal. You’ve never read about anyone feeling quite like you do but it’s normal, right? Right? 

“I’m normal aren’t I?” you ask Sollux. 

“If anything I’ve ever done or said has made you think that I’m deeply sorry.” Sollux says from underneath your desk. He’s fixing your computer and naturally he has to be an asshole about it and everything else, he’s just been in one of those moods the last perigee or so. He seems to get grumpy all of a sudden for no reason. Later you will come to learn that you’re a moron but not now. 

“I hate you.” you tell him firmly and jab him in the stomach with your toes.

“Don’t let Terezi hear you say that.” Sollux sneers and slaps your foot away. 

“Why are you such a bitch?” you ask. 

“Talking to yourself is a bad habit, KK.” he responds. You jab him again. 

“I just mean that I’m normal with her. I know things are all in flux right now but it’s a new thing and we’re still young you know? Everything’s all mashed together.” you tell him. 

“I don’t know, actually. I knew I was pale for AA, no confusion about it. Either you’re red or you’re black for TZ and you need to date her in one first if you want to flip.” Sollux tells you. 

That’s not how it is for you at all and the feeling of being wrong creeps over you terribly. Are you mutated this way too? Not just your blood but now your feelings?

“Maybe you just don’t like her that much.” Sollux suggests, putting his hand on your knee as he pulls himself out from under the desk and switches your machine on. It boots perfectly, of course it does. 

“No, that can’t be it. I like Terezi so much, I’m going to ask her to be my girlfriend when I can figure this out.” you tell him. 

“Great. Fucking- whatever, I’m going home. You’re welcome for the repair, fuckface.” Sollux growls and stomps to your balcony. 

“Thank you!” you call after him but he’s gone already. You’re an idiot because you wonder what his problem is. 

It doesn’t matter much because Terezi runs out of patience with your shit and tells you to cut it out, so you don’t date her at all. Sollux is sympathetic when you tell him and happily takes your mind off of it. But Terezi is still so appealing to you and pretty much every sweep like clockwork you find yourself falling back into the same pattern, determined not to fuck it up this time. You read every romance book you can get your hands on to try to work out why your feelings are so wrong and determined not to let anyone know. 

You try not to talk to Sollux about it, you don’t think he appreciates seeing you make the same mistakes over and over again. When you’re eight Vriska makes no bones about the fact that if you try flirting with Terezi one more time she will kill you and so you give up. You don’t tell Sollux. It doesn’t help that it seems so easy for everyone else. Several of your friends are dating each other pale and even when that doesn’t always work out neatly they still get there fine. Kanaya’s flush dated a few girls outside of your friend group who always seemed nice in passing but just didn’t work out for one reason or another. Everyone seems to just know what they want, even if they know that they don’t want something. Sollux spends ages rejecting Eridan’s pitch advances and his conversation in general. He just knows he doesn’t feel that way about him. If Eridan offers his spade Sollux knows he’s not interested. 

If Eridan offered it to you then you’d have to think about it. Could you hate him? Maybe. You can imagine it but you can imagine a lot of things. You know what Eridan likes and you know all the tropes and movies are something you talk with him about a lot so you’re pretty sure you know his tastes. You can see the mould you could try to pour yourself into, so perhaps but perhaps not. Everyone else doesn’t have to think of this, do they? They just know.

There’s something wrong with you. Other people don’t approach their feelings like a test that they’re trying to pass, they just have feelings and those feelings are right. Yours are there but they’re all wrong, mutated and shitty like the rest of you, no surprise there. 

You think it couldn’t get any worse but hearing this news in particular from Nepeta is absolutely worse.

arsenicCatnip [AC] began trolling  carcinoGeneticist [CG]  
  
AC: :33< hey karkitty can i ask you something about pawlux?  
CG: WHAT? UH, SURE I GUESS. WHAT IS IT?  
AC: :33< well its been a ship of mine for a while…  
CG: OH NO. I ALREADY DON’T LIKE WHERE THIS IS GOING.  
AC: :33< shh. did you and he ever end up as meowrails?  
CG: WHAT? NO. HE’S MY BEST FRIEND THAT’S ALL.   
CG: NOT THAT IT’S LESSER OR ANYTHING BUT THAT’S NOT THE POINT.   
CG: WAS THAT WHAT YOU WANTED TO KNOW?  
AC: :33< ah, no but maybe you won’t know the answer to my actual question then…  
CG: WHICH WAS?  
AC: :33< what his intentions are with my moirail.  
CG: HUH?  
CG: INTENTIONS?  
AC: :33< uh huh.  
CG: THEY WORK ON SOME TECH NERD PROJECTS TOGETHER AND I DON’T THINK HE’S PLANNING ON MESSING THAT UP OR ANYTHING. I DON’T REALLY KNOW WHAT HE’S WORKING ON WITH HIM AT THE MOMENT BUT WHY WOULD YOU ASK ME HIS INTENTIONS? WHAT’S UP?  
AC: :33< this isn’t really a business thing i’m talking about…  
AC: :33< it’s more…  
AC: :33< pleasure?  
CG: COME AGAIN???  
AC: :33< sollux and equius are sleeping together  
AC: :33< pailing, silly!  
CG: WHAT.  
CG: THIS IS A WEIRD JOKE NEPETA.  
AC: :33< bluhhh i’m not joking! i’m standing right here and they’re asleep and naked and there’s buckets here so it seems pretty clear cut to me, what about mew?  
CG: NO. NO WAY ARE THEY FUCKING.  
CG: SOLLUX WOULDN’T.   
AC: :33< oh and why is that?  
CG: BECAUSE  
CG: BECAUSE HE. HE JUST WOULDN’T.   
AC: :33< you think there’s something wrong with equius? he’s not good enough fur him?  
CG: WHAT? NO. I LIKE EQUIUS.  
CG: I MEAN HE’S A WEIRDO BUT SO IS EVERYONE ELSE I LIKE.   
CG: I HAVE TO GO.  
  
carcinoGeneticist [CG] ceased trolling  arsenicCatnip [AC]

You’re up early, you usually are. So it gives you plenty of time to leave your hive and go over to Sollux’s, you have a key after all. You let yourself in to find he’s not there but you sit and wait. When Sollux does get in almost an hour later him seeing you startles him so badly that he psionically flips a few bits of furniture and drops the drink he’d had in his hand. 

“Augh, great. What’s the big idea, KK? I could have blown you away.” Sollux bitches, shutting the door and glaring at you. 

You could have opened with something smart. But instead…

“YOU’RE FUCKING EQUIUS?!” you shout, making Sollux wince. 

“How’d you know that?” he asks. 

“So it’s TRUE then?! Nepeta wasn’t just joking?!” you screech. 

“Goddamn Nepeta creeping around. Yes, fine, it’s true. What do you care?” Sollux sighs and picks up his drink cup and throws it to the trash. He flips the table and other furniture right way up too. 

“You didn’t tell me!” you point out. 

“Yeah?” Sollux says. 

“We’re supposed to tell each other that kind of thing!” you insist as you grasp for a reason why him sleeping with someone and you not knowing about it feels like…

Like…

Like a betrayal?

“Well if anyone ever does pail you feel free to not tell me, I don’t want to know.” Sollux says flatly. 

You don’t bite for that comment that’s surely a mean remark on your romantic failures and instead move on. 

“So he’s what? Your matesprit now? Kismesis?” you ask, following him around. 

“HAH!” Sollux laughs loudly. 

“I’m not dating that idiot, god no.” he giggles and rights the coffee table and then falls onto the loungeplank. 

“I need parts from him sometimes, he needs code from me. It happens.” Sollux shrugs. 

“He’s… he’s making you pay for parts with pailing?” you gasp in horror and Sollux HOWLS with laughter. 

“Oh fuck you’re so dumb. No! Look, we don’t have a lot of interests in common besides tech. Sometimes I get stuck there too close to sunrise to come back and I’m sure as hell not watching the kind of movies he likes with him and I’m not letting him break my game controllers so we found… other ways to pass the time. We’re friends, sometimes we pail, it’s really not a big deal.” Sollux giggles at you. 

Your mouth noiselessly works around objections that you can’t quite form enough to voice. You don’t want them to be pailing each other, you don’t like it. You don’t like it one bit. Furthermore the idea that Equius could be pailing Sollux just because it’s fun and not because of WHO Sollux is rubs you the wrong way. It’s- it’s wrong. 

“Oh my god, KK, your face. I didn’t think you’d be so scandalised. If I knew you’d react this way I’d DEFINITELY have told you.” Sollux grins. 

The early evening light glints off of doubled up fangs, off of the delicate rings he got put in his ears last sweep. You were there for that so he didn’t lose his nerve. You look at his smiling face and your stupid mind trips over that word again. Pretty. 

You think Sollux is pretty and there’s a very obvious reason that this observation and your dislike of someone pailing Sollux makes you feel very upset. You like him. He’s your best friend and you have feelings for him but not any kind that make sense and you cannot and will not turn this into another Terezi situation again. He’s your oldest friend, your BEST friend. You won’t jerk him around like you did Terezi because he deserves better than that. It’s not your business who he pails and unless you can corral these feelings into a sensible quadrant you can’t tell him either. 

You try to say something. 

“I was just worried.” you tell him and the smile on Sollux’s face turns from teasing to actually touched. 

“Aw. Dumbass. Hey, since you’re here do you want to test a game I’ve put together? It’s a Final Fight and Super Smash mashup.” Sollux suggests as he gets to his feet. 

You stay, you play his game. It doesn’t help your feelings. 

You still talk to and see Sollux as much as you did before but your mission to work your feelings out isn’t going well. He’s important to you, desperately so, but you have no idea how. You’re friends that’s for sure but you also think he’s pretty. He has plenty of pitiable traits and though you can see how a lot of your friendship fussing is almost pale it’s not quite and you’re pretty sure being jealous that he’s getting bulge that’s not yours rules out pale as a quadrant. So you’re red for him, fine, but it’s not sustainable. You hate him sometimes and you want to prove yourself to him in a pitch way but you want to support him pale and- 

You feel everything for him. 

You can’t do everything, people don’t do that. Sollux doesn’t do that, you remember what he told you when you were first bringing this problem up to him when you were involved with Terezi. You won’t do that to him so you decide that you won’t do anything about these feelings, either you’ll grow up and shape your shit up like a proper troll or you’ll suffer your mutant feelings in agony like you deserve. 

Every half sweep your friends have a party, you and Sollux missed the last one because you couldn’t find your things and you were late. Sollux was supposed to take you there but by the time you’d found what you needed to bring and were halfway there Gamzee had snapped and tried to murder several of your friends. Kanaya had stopped it but that’d pretty much stopped the party and definitely Gamzee’s life. 

This half sweep the party is at your place and it’s going much better, you’re all older now so there’s some drinking going on and though Sollux and Vriska still avoid each other everyone’s getting on great. You’re all determined not to think about the last party and have a good time. You dance with Kanaya in a silly little waltz which Feferi then demands you both teach her with her usual gleeful excitement and that’s when you discover that three people can’t really waltz together but you all laugh a lot figuring it out. 

Sollux and Tavros are playing some combination of drinking game and fidduspawn over there, Nepeta and Terezi are bouncing around between dancing and eating food. Everyone’s having a good time, it’s a great party. People have to leave at different times of course to get back home before sunup, you don’t have enough room to host everyone and you don’t know how well Crabdad would take that anyway. He’s familiar enough with some of your friends to let them stay but not all of them. 

“You agreed you’d stay and help me clear up.” you tell Sollux. 

Or rather you say to Sollux as you look down at him on the grass. 

“Tavros is… he’s REALLY good at that game!” Sollux grins, drunk as anything. 

“Sorry!” Tavros laughs and Sollux uncoordinatedly reaches up to pat him on the leg. 

You clear up as your friends leave, Equius taking Tavros home, Feferi and Eridan sharing a ride to the coast with Vriska and so on. You’re not even done by the time Sollux feels like he can help or perhaps feels that he ought to. You don’t think he’s all that drunk, just perhaps not used to it. You say that like you’re used to it, you’ve never even been drunk. All the same you keep an eye on him as he slightly clumsily helps you out with bringing things indoors, you note he’s not using his psionics much and perhaps it’s harder in that state. 

When everything’s brought inside, the doors locked and the windows tinted you and Sollux sit down on your loungeplank and you throw some dumb gaming channel on in the background so you two have something to watch. Or rather so Sollux has someone to heckle. 

“I’m happy tonight went well.” you sigh happily. 

“No one died.” Sollux agrees with a yawn. 

“The benchmark of any good party.” you agree. 

“You met… the minimum standard at least.” Sollux snickers. 

“You don’t get to mock me, you had fun. Too much fun maybe.” you tease him, jiggling your shoulder and bouncing his head from where it was resting. 

“I’m not drunk!” Sollux protests. 

“Sure, very convincing.” you tease him. 

“You… how dare you. I’m like- I’m still smarter than you even drunk.” he boasts, sticking his finger in your face. 

“Ah, so you admit you’re drunk now?” you smirk at him and you get to watch him realise that he admitted it. 

“Just a little. Tavros is REALLY good at that game ok? I can’t be the best at every game.” Sollux says in a tone that suggests he still wishes he was. 

“I really don’t know how you expected that to go. Come on, I think you should sleep in my coon tonight. It’ll probably help your head when you wake up. Up, up.” you say as you pull him to his feet.

You mostly tune Sollux out as you take him upstairs. He argues that he shouldn’t take your coon from you and then that you’re too nice to him for giving it up. You tune back in at the point where he’s telling you that you’re his best friend, no really, you’re just great, why do you even like him when you’re so good and he’s not, etc. 

“Shut up and go to sleep, idiot.” you tell him, unable to keep the fondness out of your tone as you leave him standing by your coon.

You try to leave through the door that’s right there but the hand he’s got in the back of your sweater really puts the breaks on that, doesn’t it?

You turn around to tell him to let go and go to sleep but you don’t get the chance. Sollux kisses you. It’s, well, he’s drunk and a little clumsy so he catches you off guard but within a second or two he’s worked out what he’s doing. Your bloodpusher is going like crazy in your chest and you can’t help but melt at him kissing you, at least until you remember that you’re not meant to be doing this.

“Sollux.” you say in a rush, pushing him back. 

“Karkat.” Sollux says back like he can’t believe you’re real and kisses you again. 

You could- you could just go with this. You want to, you really do. But your feelings for him, red though they feel right now, aren’t right. You can’t fall flush for him and then jerk the carpet out from under his feet with your stupid quadrant problems. On top of all of that Sollux is drunk right now so maybe he doesn’t mean this at all. 

Sollux makes this needy stupid little noise against your mouth and you feel like the worst person. He definitely means it and you can’t do this to him. You set your hands very firmly on his shoulders and push him back. 

“Sollux, you’re really drunk right now.” you tell him. 

“I’m not!” he insists. 

“Yeah, ok, but if you were drunk you’d say that too.” you point out. 

“I’m…” Sollux seems to shrink into himself, slumping slightly and pulling his shoulders in tight, “I’m sorry.”

“Hey, no. We’re not doing that, if you want we can talk about this tomorrow. You’re drunk, I’m not, this isn’t fair ok?” you tell him. 

He does try to argue with you, to insist that he’s not that drunk, please won’t you stay, can he kiss you again to prove how serious he is, actually he’s sorry he screwed up. All of that. But you just push him towards the coon and leave.

You have until he wakes up to decide what the hell you’re going to do. 

In the end you rule out trying to fake-it-til-you-make-it with him, Sollux deserves better than that from you. You can’t date him in the state that you’re in, you’ll get his hopes up and break his heart because you can’t stick to just heart. You don’t sleep all night and talking to him in the morning is agonising, you don’t ever forget that conversation. 

“You’re my best friend.” you tell him and Sollux looks like you put a knife between his ribs. He hadn’t woken up so hungover and lost that he didn’t remember what he did, he remembered alright. 

“Well, yeah, but it’s more than that.” Sollux says softly. 

Is it ever. 

“I don’t know what you feel for me-” you try. 

“Flush. I know I’m an asshole but it’s- really REALLY red.” Sollux interrupts. 

You can’t do this. Look at how he’s looking at you, he really hopes that this can work out but you’re just not right for this. 

“I don’t feel the same.” you say. You can’t tell him you have no feelings for him, that’d be a lie, but Sollux’s feelings are normal and yours aren’t. 

He’s crushed but there’s something else you have to know. 

“How long have you…” you trail off, not sure how to ask it. Sollux laughs bitterly and scrubs at his eyes with his hands, pushing his glasses up into his hair. 

“Fuck. Four, I think?” he mutters. 

“Four perigees?” you ask. 

“Since WE were four.” Sollux corrects you sharply. 

Oh. Oh no. What have you done? How were you so stupid as to not notice? He’s spent half his life pitying you and you never knew?

“I need to go.” he mumbles and pushes himself up from the table. 

“Wait, Sollux, we’re still friends right?” you call after him but he’s already flown off without answering. 

You give him two nights. 

You bang on his door with your fist, two pizzas in boxes in your hands and a game grub in a bag dangling from your elbow. When Sollux opens the door he looks like a mess but more importantly he looks surprised to see you. You shove your foot in the doorway before Sollux can close it.

“You’re my oldest and best friend.” you announce loudly. 

“And I’m not going to let my failings end that. I have pizza and games and I’m more than willing to tolerate how weird and awkward this is going to be for a while if it means we stay friends so either let me in or throw me down the stairs and out of a window. Those are the options.” you declare loudly. 

It is awkward. Oh GOD is it awkward. You grit your teeth and persevere through the solid three perigees it takes to get close to normal again. You make rules in your head, firstly mention his feelings for you as little as possible and don’t joke about them. You also absolutely are not allowed to think of any of your feelings for him when he’s present or else you’re going to end up doing something dumb like staring wistfully at him in a way that might get his hopes up and you refuse to do that. You also resolve to not dating anyone ever, at least not unless your stupid thinksponge manages to do feelings properly. You’re also not going to comment on any of your weird crushes on celebrities anymore. As far as Sollux is allowed to be aware you’ve never wanted to kiss anyone, especially not him. 

Especially… ESPECIALLY you are not allowed to think about kissing Sollux. Absolutely not when you’re near him and also not when you’re alone at night wishing you weren’t so broken and wondering what would have happened if you’d let things go differently. You mostly manage the first half of that, the second… not so much. 

You give up on the romance thing and devote yourself to other activities and interests. Things like combat training, working out with your weapons and even asking Terezi to spar with you to train you up. You start to look a little more like the nine sweep old you are by then, you’re still short but you’re less wimpy now. You also argue more with people online about how the Empire sucks actually and maybe we should all collectively not do this. Sollux drowns you in firewalls and protections when he sees what you’re doing, you can’t help but notice that. You also can’t help but notice that he still seems to feel the same way for you, at least if the way you catch him looking at you is any clue. 

You’re a group of ten friends, by the time you’re nine and a half you’re down to eight on account of Eridan murdering Feferi and Terezi’s investigation finding him out. You all gave him a chance to explain why and shockingly no one finds his denied flushcrush on her to be a good enough motive for him to kill her, Sollux seems especially unsympathetic in a way that makes you squirm. Terezi declares him guilty and she’s the one who ends the problem. 

By the time you’re coming up on ascension at ten you’ve decided that your blood colour is going to get you killed and Sollux’s powers will likely get him killed, the system is fucked and you’re not playing. When Eridan died your group took hold of his cash in case any of you needed it, which bought Tavros decent prosthetics as well as an upgrade for Vriska. You tell your friends that you won’t be participating in this system anymore and you’re going to leave this planet and never look back and they’re all welcome to join you. 

Sollux comes with you, not that you had much doubt there. Kanaya also joins you, she doesn’t want the life of a cloistered Jade even with the reforms in the last hundred sweeps or so. Tavros also comes, to your surprise Nepeta and Equius also join you, and you hate that you wonder if Equius came for Sollux. You don’t know if they still pail and you’ve no goddamn right to ask either. A selfish part of you hopes that they don’t.

Terezi refuses to come with you, saying she’s of more use on the inside and that she’ll have Vriska skirt the law to bring you information and help you out. That’s sad but also pretty smart and understandable. You end up stealing a ship and using Eridan’s gold to finance the start of… whatever it is you’re doing. Not being in the Empress’ forces mainly. 

You’re not the only people that have ever done that of course and there are planets, space stations and outlying areas of the empire that are lawless. You hang out with people who hate the empire as much as the rest of you and it might be terrifying but it’s better than being dead. One time in a fight you’re wounded and not only is no one on your ship shocked at your colour, neither are the assholes in the bar who started the damn fight, at that point you figure that you very much like this life. You get to arguing with the people in these places about anything you can which earns you something of a reputation, Sollux insists that you’re the loudest fugitive in the universe. However because your friends need food, your ship needs fuel and you refuse to helm your best friend you end up having to pick up work. You have a ship and the people to run it, there are things you won’t do, but plenty you will. Taking people who need to get out of one place and to somewhere else is one thing you will, running contraband materials around in and out of the empire and importantly helping Terezi out when she needs information or people moved. 

You bump into Vriska a sweep in, she was waiting for you so she could pass on a message from Terezi and orders for another job. She’s a ship’s captain now, a position she keeps only so that Terezi has an excuse to be on a ship to get to places she has no legitimate reason to be. Just there to see her moirail, honest. Vriska hands you Terezi’s message with a sulky air and when you ask her what her problem is she demands to know if you’re going to be smug about you being a famous pirate and her not. 

“I didn’t even know I was a pirate at all!” you tell Sollux when you’re back on the ship. 

“You have the coat.” Sollux points out with a smile as he rests his chin in his hand. 

“It’s… I like this coat. And- and it’s always pissing it down with rain on Alarys-7, it’s an investment.” you protest. 

“And the earrings?” he asks, pointing. 

“You have your ears pierced and you definitely weren’t a pirate when you got those done!” you tell him but he just laughs and goes back to his illegal tech work. 

“Well, I guess our work is illegal and we do sometimes take or move things that aren’t strictly ours. But I’m famous?” you say in wonder smoothing your coat down as if trying on the idea itself. 

“You argue with everyone we meet yet fucking nearly everyone owes you some kind of favour. Even if someone wanted to kill you there’s no way it wouldn’t cause a lot of trouble to do it, so yeah, I guess you’re famous.” he shrugs. 

“The famous pirate captain Karkat Vantas.” you whisper in awe. 

“I thought you had to have ribs removed to suck your own bulge like that.” Sollux snorts, thoroughly bursting your bubble. 

“Mr. Captor, how dare you? I’m a FAMOUS pirate and I won’t take talk like that from my first mate!” you laugh and shove his chair, making it spin. This whole thing is so dumb, you can’t help but laugh. At least up until your legs stop doing what you tell them and you buckle to your knees. 

“Oh no, the downfall of the terrible pirate. I guess I’m captain now.” Sollux grins and casually kicks his spinning office chair over to you. You know that it’s psionics sticking your shins to the floor (deck? That’s more piratey isn’t it?). 

“Next time,” he tells you quietly as he leans in, “get a pirate hat so I can symbolically take it from you when you tragically fall.” 

You look up at him. He’s still pretty. Not traditionally handsome perhaps but like… he’s… beautiful maybe?

It’s not like this never happens. Ever since he kissed you all those sweeps ago and you decided you wouldn’t do anything about it until you worked out your feelings you still get moments like this. Moments where you’re closer than normal, not always just physically either but emotionally too. And there’s this crackle of tension between you two that’s so real you could swear it was his psionics. Like right now you have every temptation to lean up and kiss him because- well you’ve long stopped trying to put colours on things. Reddish black maybe? He’s not seriously goading you so more red teasing but either way you want him. 

So you do the super smart thing and call attention to it. 

“So is it just the pirate thing that you’re into or what?” you say dumbly. 

“Pirates in general don’t do it for me, no.” Sollux answers quietly, the room is empty but for you two but it’s like what he’s saying is just for you. 

The implication is clear, it’s not pirates that he likes. It’s YOU. Shit, what are you doing?

“But… if the fearsome pirate captain wants me to finish MY piracy so he can illegally watch tonight’s ‘Sing or Be Culled’...” Sollux trails off meaningfully and turns back to his desk, opening up a bottle of some clear energy drink. 

“Yes! Please! Oh come on I have to know who makes it through to the next round! I’ll do anything!” you beg. You note that your legs are unfrozen so you shuffle over to Sollux’s desk and give him your best sad face. You are not above debasing yourself for your reality TV fix, ok? A man has his weaknesses!

At your words Sollux pauses, the bottle held just close to his lips (don’t think about his lips). He looks at you calculatingly and smiles. 

“I’ll remember that.” he tells you. 

“Why do I have a feeling that’s going to bite me in the ass the next time you see some shiny new tech that’s way too expensive?” you complain. 

“It’s like you can see the future. Go on, I can probably have it playing in your block before you even get there.” Sollux tells you smugly. 

“Oh, we’ll see about that bulgelord!” you laugh and rush back to your block. It is already playing when you get in. 

When you’re twelve sweeps old Terezi gives you a mission. There’s a legislacerator that she’s got it out for, one who’s compromising the reforms she’s been pushing through but he has blackmail on several of Terezi’s allies so they won’t move against him. She needs you to steal the blackmail, it’s a vault that’s unhackable on a planet nigh impossible to remain undercover on, oh and the guy is a combat expert. Terezi can help legitimise two of Sollux’s fake IDs to get you there but the rest is up to you. 

You and Sollux end up on the planet, it rains, you take the coat. Sollux has to wear contacts to get through the security but you both make it through ok and he takes them out almost the second that you’re checked into the hotel room. 

“We have a view of the path he’ll have to take to the vault, we’ll see him coming just like Terezi’s research said we would.” you say softly as you peer out of the window.

“And lucky for you I brought subtle tech that’ll scan for his face the whole time so you don’t have to spend however long it is with your head out of the window like a barkbeast.” Sollux says, elbowing you aside to set his tech up. 

“Well the legislacerator managed to evade whoever Terezi sent to surveil him last time but he comes pretty regularly so he could be here tomorrow or in a week or two. We just have to wait.” you say with a nod. 

“Yes, KK, I was also at that meeting.” Sollux drawls. 

“Yeah, well, sometimes I think you’ve learnt to sleep with your eyes open.” you mutter. 

“Even if I could I snore, you’d still know if I was asleep.” Sollux points out as he finishes his work and checks it out on his palmhusk. 

“I know that too, remind me why I’m spending who knows how long in one room with you again?” you say sarcastically. 

The question of why you’d spend that long in a room alone with Sollux is one you’ll ask yourself over and over again. You both hang out, watch tv, play games, talk. It’s just like when you were younger and in all honesty that has you feeling a lot of feelings you’re not prepared for when you’re so close to him. The room is hardly big but you get around the one coon problem by doing something you ought to do anyway which is sleeping in shifts so that one of you can keep an eye on the surveillance tech. Or in your case so you can do that and stare at your best friend’s sleeping body and hate how much you’re attracted to him. Just like the night he was drunk and kissed you it’s a day where you stay awake trying to look at your feelings in any way that would let you reconcile them into one quadrant. But just like that time you can’t, you just can’t. But you want to so badly, you wonder if maybe you should try.

You should thank your lucky stars that the legislacerator comes not long after Sollux has woken up, which puts it at evening local time and this planet is diurnal thanks to how pissweak its star is. The point is that Sollux puts his contacts in and the pair of you follow the man. You’re hoping he’ll go to the vault and you can jump him when he opens it but another bit of Terezi’s dossier on him proves to be true. The legislacerator has quite the problem when it comes to an illicit drink, you follow him to the bar where there’s already one empty glass next to him and he’s already downing the next. 

“Sollux, the glass. We might need his fingerprints.” you hiss and you watch as Sollux surreptitiously looks around and then psionically whips the empty glass over to him and right into his sylladex. 

“Maybe if we think of it this way him losing everything from his vault that’s probably keeping him employed will be a wakeup call for him.” you say hopefully. Sollux doesn’t look optimistic. 

There are things that you want in an undercover theft operation and there are things that you definitely don’t want to happen. This list includes but is not limited to your mark noticing you both and coming over to your table. He’s drunk already, very drunk, and though you’re conscious that he could be faking it you don’t think that he is. 

The legislacerator acts like the three of you are brand new best friends and buys you drinks and asks all sorts of questions about who you are and what you do. You and Sollux make up convincing lies about yourselves and each other for him all the while you have to keep drinking.

Sollux who does actually drink is drinking the harder stuff and has the excuse for going slow, you also watch how he brings the glass to his mouth a lot and just thinks of something to say before he actually drinks, making it seem like he’s drinking more than he is. You on the other hand opted for the weak shit and your fucking mark keeps cajoling you for not keeping up. 

Blessedly the legislacerator doesn’t have the smarts to pace himself and he’s shitfaced before you’re too far gone. He loudly tells you that he has to go do some secret business. He tries to tap himself on the nose secretively but misses and pokes himself in the eye that he was thankfully winking with at the time so he’s fine. 

“WOW.” Sollux says the moment the guy is out of the bar. 

“We should follow him, at a safe distance.” you say, trying very hard to sober up through sheer force of will. 

“I don’t think we need to be all that far back for him not to notice, come on. I’m cutting you off.” Sollux grins. 

“I’m not drunk.” you insist and that sounds weirdly familiar. 

You hop off of your barstool and follow Sollux, shaking your head to try to clear it. The pair of you duck out of the bar and silently follow your mark as he weaves down the road. Your head is a little floaty maybe but otherwise you’re fine. 

“For a guy who doesn’t drink your tolerance isn’t bad.” Sollux whispers. 

“Thanks? My judgement might be impaired so you should probably call the shots here.” you say thoughtfully and duck into the next alley and peer out of it at your oblivious mark. 

“I’m not sure if you trusting me like that is a sign that you’re thinking clearly or not.” Sollux laughs quietly and pulls you onwards.

“Why would you say that? I trust you, I always trust you.” you tell him. 

Sollux gasps and drags you into a doorway. Before you can say anything he shoves his hand inside your coat and presses his cold hand up your shirt and against your skin. You gasp in surprise and yelp when he digs his claws in a little. 

“Cut that out!” you hiss and smack at his arm. Sollux leans in, his mouth grazing your ear. 

“He saw us, I don’t think he recognised us but thanks to your voice that carries so well I’m pretty sure he’s got an idea of what we’re doing.” he whispers and you shiver in a way you’d like to blame the cold for. Getting drunk around Sollux is a bad idea. Still, this is an important mission so… you wind your arms around Sollux’s neck and pretend like you’re maybe kissing his neck on the other side where the legislacerator can’t see you but you’re not. 

“I’m your captain you know.” you whisper. “You can’t just shove your hand up my shirt even if it is mission critical it’s… it’s like a rule or something.” you mumble against his skin. 

“Did I miss a memo?” Sollux says, his voice a little tight. 

“Oh fuck off no one’s read my memos since I was six.” you laugh as quietly as you can. 

“He’s gone, let’s wait a minute.” Sollux says instead of answering you. He pulls his hand back from under your shirt and a dumb bit of you wishes he wouldn’t do that. 

“You’re calling the shots.” you agree quietly. Sollux doesn’t say anything to that either. What he does do less than a minute later is take your hand so the two of you can silently rush after the legislacerator. You’ve lost him but you know roughly where the vault is and him drunkenly cursing answers the rest of it for you. He’s too drunk to pass whatever tests he has to do to get in there, including drunkenly mashing on some piano keys. 

He must hear you coming because he whirls around and stares at you, stumbles and then falls to the floor and hits his head when he lands. 

“We need to have words with Terezi about this later.” you tell Sollux. 

“You can tell her after I’ve got into this vault.” Sollux says and crouches down at the vault door. 

“Terezi said it was impossible to crack, that we needed him to open it and then we get in.” you whisper, getting closer. 

“I know, it’ll make you all the more impressed when I do it anyway. Besides that guy isn’t doing anything any time soon.” Sollux scoffs. 

“It’s not like it’d shock me you’re like… the smartest person alive.” you tell him. 

“You’re drunk.” Sollux says quietly. 

“No I’m not. You think I don’t think that? You know I think you’re great. I just don’t usually tell you because you get all self satisfied and insufferable about it, but I thought you KNEW.” you say in surprise. 

“This is doable, I just need time. Gag him and tie him up then keep watch.” Sollux tells you. 

You’re pretty handy with your knots now thanks to the whole pirate thing. You don’t like to kill people so you’re pretty adept at taking prisoners. Besides as you’ve discovered leaving survivors is how one gets a reputation and people generally remember the guy who could have killed them and didn’t, then they talk. 

Either way you’re crouched at the entrance to the vault, keeping an eye on the outside street and on your blacked out prisoner. In the background Sollux types and you hear mechanical noises and your head starts to clear a little. When the unhackable vault door finally swings open you’re more or less yourself again, not that you were bad off before. The pair of you split and strip the place of every bit of blackmail you can find, storing it safely for Terezi to either use, peruse or destroy as she sees fit. When you’re done you lock the vault again, untie your man and carefully look him over. 

“I have an idea. We leave him here, let him think he blacked out, lay low for a day or so in case he reports a theft and then slip back to the ship after that.” you suggest. 

Sollux makes an uncertain noise. You pop a bottle of limited edition faygo out of your sylladex and with your coat covering your fingers you open it and pour some over him and the floor, cap it and nudge it under his arm. 

“Why do you have that?” Sollux asks you skeptically. 

“Bribing people mostly, that’s hard to get stuff. Come on, let’s go.” you insist and pull him along with you down the street and back to your hotel. 

“We should celebrate!” you cheer and pull him through the door with you. 

The pair of you end up celebrating plenty, Sollux has nice stuff to drink instead of the things you keep for trading or sweetening people up as gifts. You drink and you play dumb card games with each other, the same shit that you’ve been doing since you got here but now you’re not waiting for anything. You’re just having fun. 

“Ok, I’m a guy, I’m famous-” Sollux frowns, nearly dislodging the note stuck to his forehead. The two of you gave up on card games a while back and started playing that guess who I am game. 

“You’re sort of famous among most people, very notable in your field.” you tell him. 

“Ok so probably not an actor.” Sollux concludes. 

“Definitely not an actor, even if he’s pretty enough.” you nod. 

“Look, just because Troll Will Smith does slam poetry too doesn’t mean you can just-” Sollux starts. 

“You’re not Troll Will Smith. You’re way off.” you grin over the top of your drink and eye the note on his head. 

“Male, semi famous, not an actor, not Troll Will Smith, apparently gets you hot and bothered.” Sollux recaps. 

“Definitely.” you nod a little too fast. 

“I can’t think of the last time you told me you thought someone was hot.” Sollux remarks. 

Yeah, there’s a reason for that. 

“I’m guessing not military.” Sollux continues. 

“Super not military.” you agree. 

Sollux looks at you and you look back at him and drink a little more of your drink.

“KK, tell me I don’t have the name of some pirate you’re hot for stuck to my head.” Sollux says flatly. 

“You do!” you grin.

“And I don’t want to play anymore and you’re shitty when you’re drunk. We learnt things, I’m going to sleep.” Sollux mutters and stands up. He pulls the note from his head and scrumples it up without even looking at it. 

“Sollux wait!” you call, reaching your hand over the playing cards and using the distance to grab him by the leg with your other hand. You look down at the floor, slightly dazed. Your hand is on a pile of scattered playing cards and the symbols on them are all jumbled up, little quadrant signs all a mess just like you. 

“It’s your name.” you tell his knee. 

“That’s not funny.” Sollux says after a moment. 

You hiss and unsteadily get to your feet, using him for support on the way up. 

“Look if you don’t believe me.” you challenge him. 

“Even if you did write it that doesn’t make it a funny joke.” he tells you. 

“I’m not joking.” you insist, staring him down. His contacts are long gone, who knows where. 

You stare at him and hear the paper rustle as he opens it one handed and looks. When you hear the papery noise stop you think ‘fuck it’ and kiss the side of his face. 

“You’re drunk.” he tells you as if you don’t know. 

“Uh-huh.” you mumble and kiss the edge of his mouth anyway. You weren’t going for the edge of it but you’re ok with this. 

“But you don’t like me.” Sollux protests. 

“Hah! LIKING YOU has NEVER been my problem.” you laugh and try again to kiss him but this time it’s definitely him that moves, not you. 

“What has been the problem then?” he asks. 

“Me. I’m the problem.” isn’t that obvious? You’re the one who’s all wrong here, it’s never been him. 

“I have no idea what’s happening here.” Sollux whines. 

“I really want to kiss you and you’re not letting me, that’s what’s happening. So please?” you ask hopefully and lean in. Sollux watches you but he doesn’t move away. It’s not as if this exact thing isn’t on your mind a lot, when you do kiss him it’s so much better than when you imagine it. He’s also mostly sober so it’s way better than your first kiss. 

Right when you’re really getting into it and considering how well it might go if you can get your hands on Sollux’s belt he pushes you back.

“You’re very drunk, we’re not doing this when we’re drunk. Especially when you’re this drunk and you’ve never been drunk before. You’re my best friend it’d be super shitty.” Sollux tells you. That all sounds very good and noble but it’s massively interfering with the things you want. 

“Me being drunk is totally unrelated to-”

“The total 180 on your feelings for me that you’ve not shown any signs of having before now, including that time you rejected me before? You being suddenly VERY DRUNK has nothing to do with that, huh? I may still be as red as your mutant blood for you KK but I’m not stupid.” he tells you, his hands holding you tight by the shoulders. Oh, this is like the last time but backwards. 

“But I mean it, I pity you.” you tell him. 

It’s not totally true, there’s not a word for what you feel but you want him to understand the depth of your feelings at least. He looks a little like you just slapped him. Seriously, his eyes are wide with stunned surprise and everything!

“Then you can go to sleep and tell me in the morning. Get in the coon.” Sollux tells you and marches you over to it. 

Fine. 

In an act of protest you starting taking your clothes off to a quiet ‘oh god’ from Sollux. 

“And what are YOU going to do then?” you challenge him as you struggle to take your boots off. It’s not very sexy you must admit. 

“Me? I’m… I’m going to sit over there, not sleep, and think about my life choices probably. Maybe over analyze every conversation we’ve ever had.” he says, his voice a little high. Your boots undo themselves and you have enough time to pull the last of your clothes off before Sollux shoves you in the sopor and you’re out. 

That whole thing back there, that was a mistake. But you’re pretty sure at this point it would be salvageable. You could have woken up the next morning in horror at the lines you’d crossed and apologised. You could have said that you value Sollux deeply as a friend and you do think he’s attractive but you shouldn’t have led him on, you were very drunk and you’re sorry. You would have hurt him and made things awkward no doubt but you could have survived it, sworn off drinking and maybe tolerated jibes about that one time you drank too much. That would have been a mistake you could have fixed. 

You didn’t do that. 

When you wake up your head is aching and the room is still spinning slightly. A bottle of water nudges your arm and you groan, drag a deep breath of air into your lungs and sink below the sopor. Ugh, your fucking head. Why did- SOLLUX!

You burst from the surface and look around. Your eyes land on Sollux who is already looking just like he did the morning after he kissed you, like he expects this to go badly and just seeing him that way hurts. 

“Before you do anything you should shower and put on clothes.” Sollux tells you quickly. 

You look down at yourself in the sopor, yeah this isn’t a conversation that you should have like this. You nod and wince with regret at the movement and Sollux actually helps you get out of the coon and stumble to the ablutionblock. You shut the door and get under the water in the crappy shower and try to think. 

You kissed him. Not him kissing you, you started it. You told him you thought he was attractive and then you kissed him. He still likes you, you know he does and now he knows that you think about it too. What are you going to DO? The part of your mind that’s still a little bit merry from drinking has some ideas about just what you could do but you’re not going to do that, you need to think. 

Sollux pities you, he’s your best friend and he’s felt this way since you were little kids. You let him down once because it wasn’t fair to not have the same feelings and you’d hoped you’d get better at it but you haven’t. You’ve not become normal just by growing up and you still feel the same things for him that you have for ages and his feelings haven’t changed. He knows you better than anyone else, he’s your best friend and he’s red for you isn’t he?

God, if you could make this work you could be so happy with him, you know it. You rest your head on the tiles for a moment and indulge yourself in fantasy, one where you’re together and normal and everything is just so good. Ugh, it’s not fair. But you do have red feelings for him, of course you do. You could do this, you just have to suppress every other feeling you have for him and never feel or speak of them again until one of you dies. In exchange you both get to be happy. Hey, maybe if you refuse to acknowledge those other feelings they’ll just… go away? 

You shut off the shower. This is a terrible idea but you want it so bad, you want to be normal and you want him. If anyone could be enough to fix you it would be Sollux, that’s how this sort of thing goes isn’t it? Friends for nearly your whole lives moving to matesprits like some kind of poetic destiny. Right? 

You slick back your hair and go to dry off. You stopped reading romance books ages ago but you think their ideas poisoned your mind somewhat. You wipe the steam from the mirror and stare at yourself. You know what you want, you want Sollux. You always have. You can’t ignore all the other things you feel but you don’t have to act on them, it’s not perfect but you could be happy, you could make him happy. You just want that, is that so bad?

You open the door. Sollux looks up already tense and stands from the chair he’d been sat in. 

“You were really drunk.” he says, a neutral statement. 

“If you’re going to mock me for that you may as well start now.” you tell him. 

“I’ve kind of got other things on my mind.” Sollux says slowly. 

He thinks you’re going to say no to him, that you didn’t mean it. You don’t want to make him that sad, not like you did last time. The thought HURTS. 

“I kissed you.” you say, coming a little closer. 

“You did.” he agrees. 

“I think I remember saying that you were hot, too.” you add, picking at the hem of your thankfully clean shirt. You’re glad you packed a lot of clothes for this mission. 

“You also said I was sort of famous which I object to.” he says with an irritated twitch of his eye that makes you grin. 

“Hey, we can’t all be the the famous Pirate Captain Vantas.” you tease him.

“Oh, fuck you.” Sollux mutters and shakes his head. 

“Okay.” is out of your mouth before you can think better of it. 

Sollux stares at you and you stare back at him. 

“You… what?” Sollux says finally. 

You want this, do you EVER want this. 

“You heard me.” you say in a rush. 

You both just stare at each other so you figure you should probably say more. 

“You’re- are you still red for me?” you ask him with your bloodpusher in your throat. 

“Yes, of course I am. I… are you actually…” Sollux drifts off without finishing his sentence. 

You want this, you want to be happy with him and you want him to be happy. 

“I have feelings for you too, I wasn’t just drunk. Obviously I was drunk but that’s unrelated and also… thanks for making me sleep it off instead of letting me be dumb.” you tell him. 

“Holy shit are you sure you’re not still drunk because you’ve never acted like we could ever be anything else other than friends. Or… well, there were moments where I thought- but that was just me reading into things wasn’t it?” Sollux whispers. 

“I didn’t want to fuck this up.” you admit. It’s true. (And yet you did just that, didn’t you?)

“But-” Sollux says. But you really don’t want to talk about it, instead you take a step closer to him and kiss him. 

This time neither of you are drunk and this time he kisses you back. You want him, he wants you, on this at least you’re speaking the same language.

“Fuck, KK, I pity you so much.” he tells you between kisses. 

“Pity you too.” you tell him. You don’t specify red or pale, you’re focusing on red. You’re just doing red, nothing else. You don’t tell him about the kaleidoscope of other feelings in you, you’re ignoring it. 

“I’ve never done this before.” you admit as you get your hand up his shirt like he did to you yesterday. 

“Kissed someone?” Sollux says in surprise. 

“Yeah.” you nod and then pause with a frown, “Well, except you. Just you.” 

Sollux’s expression goes weirdly tense and that’s about all of the warning you get before Sollux presses you up against a wall and has very obviously decided to take the lead here. That’s fine, you want whatever he wants and you have zero complaints about how this is going at all. 

“Sollux!” you gasp when he bites your neck but he pulls back then looking worried. 

“Are you… we don’t have to do this if you don’t-” he says, another out. Another point where you could have maybe fixed this. 

“Holy shit either take your shirt off and shut up or I’m doing it for you.” you hiss at him. 

Sollux grins but pointedly shuts up and lifts his arms so you can pull his clothes off and he returns the favour. From there it gets… 

Look, like you told him you’d never done this before but it’s fine because Sollux sure knows what he’s doing and you try real hard not to think about how he got that experience. You tell him over and over how red you are for him, how much you pity him and he tells you it right back. It’s not a lie, you’re not lying, that is how you feel whenever you say it. 

But it’s a mistake, this whole thing is. 

You don’t realise it when Sollux is kissing his way down your bare chest, but it is. You’re not thinking about it when his bulge slides so perfectly into your nook that it’s like you’re made for him, but it still is. You don’t consider it a mistake when you’re breathlessly telling him how much you’ve thought about this before. Nor do you when the two of you are done or when you two drift off to sleep together. 

Waking up after that is one of the worst moments of your life. 

You open your eyes and look at Sollux, still asleep. He was awake the whole time you slept your stupor off after all and you tired him out just now didn’t you? You look at his pretty face and think about his feelings and you feel an irrepressible wave of pity for him.

The wrong kind. 

Your pity is more pale than red and you KNOW you’re not supposed to mix the two, you’re not supposed to be able to hold both in your head at once but looking at him right now you itch to drag him into a pile and jam about what just happened and how you feel and it’s WRONG. Holy fuck you couldn’t even keep it in one quadrant for a whole DAY! You can’t do this, you can’t do this to him. 

You abscond into the ablution block and shower, scrubbing Sollux’s yellow off of your skin as you panic. You don’t know how to fix this and that’s because you can’t. Sometimes you just fuck up so bad that you can’t make it better. You can always make it worse though. 

“I can’t do this.” you tell him when you come out and wake him up. 

Yeah, you can make it worse like that. 

Getting to watch the heartbreak on your best friend’s face is legitimately the worst thing that you’d ever seen in your life. 

“But you said you pitied me.” Sollux whispers. 

You do pity him and everything else, but you can’t say that. 

“It’s- I just can’t do this.” you say. 

“Because you’re Captain or something because that shit doesn’t matter!” Sollux insists. 

Oh, that could have been a good reason, way to not think of that one dipshit. 

“No it’s not that. It’s just complicated and I can’t explain.” you say weakly. 

“You knew I pitied you.” Sollux says sharply as he stands up. 

“...Yeah.” you admit. 

“And you knew that I wanted you, that I wanted you to pity me back but you don’t pity me. But- but you told me you did ANYWAY? For what? For… for that?!” Sollux demands furiously. 

“I mean I didn’t intend for- it all just- I got carried away.” you blabber uselessly. 

Sollux stares at you open mouthed and you feel just AWFUL. You feel a lot worse when he punches you in the face, but you deserved that. Sollux starts scrambling into his clothes and angrily grabbing his things up. 

“We’re leaving.” he snaps out. 

“But we should wait in case-” you start. 

“We’re LEAVING.” Sollux hisses, reeling around to you with his psionics glowing so hard his eyes leave a trail. 

He shoves his contacts in and marches out of the hotel with you meekly trailing behind him. You follow in silence as he takes you to the shuttle to get your off world and you stay silent until you’re in your seat. Turning to him then you open your mouth to try to explain but he just hisses at you to not talk to him and so you stay in silence. The shuttle takes you to the hub satellite where you both go to your ship. 

Sollux goes to his block and you’re left outside feeling like shit, deservedly so. Sollux misses dinner and you don’t have the stomach to eat anyway. When you sleep your dreams are restless and full of guilt so you’re easily woken in the middle of the night by Nepeta hammering on your door. 

“Karkat! We have a problem!” she tells you breathlessly. You’re on your feet following her to the bridge in no time but you can see what the problem is, your ship is moving and you never authorised it to do so. When you get to the bridge everyone working there tells you that they’re locked out of everything and you’re going at max speed, yet your course keeps adjusting so you don’t hit anything. You don’t want to have to face him but Sollux is the only one who can solve this problem, if this is some virus or something is wrong with the ship then he’s the one to fix it. 

You knock on his door and get no answer but this is your ship and as captain no door is ever locked to you, you’re just informed that they are locked and asked if you want to open it anyway. You open Sollux’s door. 

Sollux’s block is cleared out, every bit of tech gone, every poster missing, every item in his wardrobe gone. On his desk is one note that simply reads ‘we’re not friiend2 anymore’.

You deserve that too. 

The ship controls are returned to you a full day after the ship left the station and you take another day flying right back the way you came by which point he is long gone and no one can tell you where he might have gone to. Nepeta and the rest of your friends have questions as to why Sollux would just abandon all of you like that, why he’d infect your ship with a virus and then leave. 

You don’t tell them what you did, not the details at least, but you say that you had a personal disagreement which was 100% your fault and that he’s allowed to leave the ship if he wants. When you leave it’s to go find Terezi.

You meet her in the bar and, thoroughly put off of drinking for life, you drink water and wait. 

“Karkat, my colleague has been very twitchy mysteriously.” Terezi says vaguely as she sits down. 

“Here.” you say and hand over the card with all of the boxes and other blackmail in to her. 

Terezi sniffs at it and puts it away in her own sylladex. 

“This will help greatly, if I ever have any other errands for you I’m sure you’ll be of assistance.” she smiles. 

“Just… say the word.” you sigh wearily. 

Terezi’s expression is tight as she looks at you and when you hear the quiet sound of her sword unsheathing you grab your own weapon and look hastily around the bar for whatever threat she’s seen. That’s until the tip of her sword embeds itself in your chair just between your thighs. 

“You know what I hate, Karkat?” Terezi asks lightly. 

“Aauugh?” you try to turn your stifled noise of distress into something that sounds like a question as the blade scrapes closer. 

“I hate people who hurt my friends, can’t stand it.” Terezi continues cordially, the blade edging closer to your crotch. 

“Oh fuck you’ve seen Sollux.” you gasp and try to lever yourself out of your chair a little. 

“I have.” she confirms. 

“Shit, I didn’t mean to hurt him. I’m the worst. I get that he wants me to stay away, not like I know where he is anyway, I get the point!” you hiss desperately as the sword tip scrapes through more of the chair. 

“You get the POINT?” Terezi asks and jerks the blade slightly. 

“Yes! I do, ok? I fucked up, I probably deserve you executing me if that’s what you want but-” you hesitate and your shoulders slump a little. 

“No but, really. I deserve it, go ahead.” you mumble. 

“Well that won’t solve anything. You’re more useful to everyone alive.” Terezi sniffs and pulls her blade back. You drop gratefully if miserably into your chair. 

“What the hell is wrong with you anyway?” Terezi demands as she sheathes her blade. 

“Do you want the short answer or the long one?” you ask her, flopping facedown on the table. 

“The short one.” Terezi tells you. 

“Everything.” you say. 

“Fine, the long one.” she huffs. 

“Eeeeeeeveryyyyythiiiiiiing.” you drag it out just to prove your point. 

“You need to start thinking of a better answer for that question. I’ll contact you when I next need something, shape your shit up Karkat, you’re starting to look like a bad guy. You know how I feel about those.” Terezi snaps and gets to her feet. She marches off, a flare of teal and red sweeping out of the drab bar leaving you with just the other patrons. 

You hate yourself, it’s very tempting to get trashed but you deserve this so you don’t get to numb it. Besides you probably shouldn’t drink again ever. 

It doesn’t surprise you that your friends start to drift in and out of your company and your crew, some setting up bases on other planets or stations or founding sister ships to yours. You still see all of them a lot but the only one who stays for most of the time is Nepeta unless you’re within a week of the planet that Equius has set up semi-permanent shop on and then she heads down there for moirail time. You don’t know if any of them have seen Sollux and you don’t ask, you don’t know if they know what you did. You don’t know if he told them, if Terezi did or if word has just spread. Hell, maybe you’re just isolating yourself out of misery and pushing them away, who knows?!

Either way you deserve it. 

You focus on doing good, your work has tipped far more to the budding rebellion. You’ve helped in strategy meetings, aiding various cells, helping Terezi’s reform work. You run rescue operations, carry fugitives around, break people out of jail. The weird thing is that no one seems to be leading the rebellion to your eyes. There are leaders of course, most of your friends count as those. Whenever you’re in meetings with actual rebels it doesn’t seem to you like anyone’s in charge, at least you can’t identify anyone in the room leading the operation so being the loudmouth that you are you almost always end up calling the shots even if you often go with the brilliant idea someone else had. Yet whenever you hear about the rebellion they all talk about this leader they have, it’s so odd. 

You try to do a lot of the work in small scale. Not everyone in the empire is a total piece of shit and plenty of people can be reasoned with. You’ve personally turned hundreds of empire workers into rebels just through talk alone and beyond that you have people all over the empire who owe you a good turn for something you did for them. There are good people out there and you hope that just one bad choice doesn’t damn someone completely so you try to help people fix things. 

You’re not so oblivious as to not know where THAT drive comes from. 

Your fourteenth wriggling day is not your best, you nearly get your leg blown off for one. You drag two imperial officers to safety and save a third’s life which led to the nearly losing your leg thing. You’d been trying to save some intelligence op gone wrong, you evaced the spies and went back for the information. When you were there you got caught but when you showed the officers the heinous information that was being covered up they started coming around to your side. It could have been bloodless until a nearby drone caught you and wrote the officers off as traitors despite their insistence that they were innocent. The drone didn’t care, they’re just numbers. 

You worked with them and managed to destroy the drone but the explosion really badly hurt you but it hurt the last officer much more. You all got the hell out of dodge with you stealing the intel and dragging the wounded officer to his comrades. You got the three of them to lay low for a day or two while Terezi checked their records and as luck would have it the drone hadn’t managed to report their “crime” in time, they were in the clear. You’d told them that the choice was theirs but if they wanted to find you it wouldn’t be hard. 

With that over you’d limped back to your extraction point and eventually got back to your ship. 

It’s looking a little like you might lose the leg at this point but you have to wait and see. A younger you might have found the whole pirate with a prosthetic leg thing funny but you don’t find much funny anymore. You especially don’t find fate funny either. 

You get a call from one of the officers you saved and you expect that they might be turning sides, but it’s not that. 

“We do owe you and… I think this might do as payment. One of yours to make up for saving at least one of us. We still owe you more but it’s a step closer to even.” the commanding officer says over the secured line. 

“A rebel?” you ask in surprise. 

“Yeah, with our station destroyed we got shipped out to here. He was caught and… well. The opportunity seemed appropriate, a breakout would be more than believable.” he says. 

You have him exchange details of where and when to your navigation officer and Nepeta forwards the intel onto Terezi just to be sure it’s not a trap. You doubt that it is but she seems very pleased at the idea and sends you on that way, she says that she was going to send you there anyway because she’d heard through OTHER sources that she doesn’t disclose. 

Whatever, you try to sleep your injury off and when the time comes you don’t have the ego to insist that you go on the mission yourself, you’re a liability right now. So needless to say you’re surprised when the rebel prisoner that your people walk back through your doors is Sollux, you don’t even see him right away. Nepeta rushes to tell you, you’d been midway through a call with the commanding officer to set up the damage to make it look like they fought you off. 

One of your junior officers is trying to put Sollux in the brig. 

“Jacobs! What are you DOING?!” you demand as you march (ok, limp) towards her. 

“Sorry Captain but I’ve heard the other men talking, he’s a deserter isn’t he?” she says, pointing her weapon at him. 

“He is NOT. Sol, come here. Let me get you out of those.” Nepeta says, elbowing Jacobs aside and undoing Sollux’s cuffs and helping him with the shit that turns his psionics off. 

“He abandoned ship didn’t he? Hacked something to steer the ship away?” Jacobs points out. 

“That’s not- he outRANKS YOU, OFFICER. NOW GET OUT!” you snarl, your voice building in volume. 

“I- I’m sorry Captain.” Jacobs squeaks and runs off, you instantly feel bad. 

“We never replaced your position.” Nepeta explains quietly.

You swallow thickly and look over at Nepeta and Sollux. She looks back at you and then to him. 

“I’ll… leave you two alone. It was good to see you again.” Nepeta says quietly and finds somewhere else to be. 

“You…” fuck your mouth is dry, try again, “you don’t have to stay in the brig. Your block is just like you left it.” 

“Where exactly are we? They moved me so I don’t know.” Sollux says stiffly. 

“Uh…” you flounder, not sure how much detail he wants. 

“Where’s the nearest friendly station?” he asks. 

“That’d be Sigma Central or if you want very lawless then Cenurii Base isn’t that much further.” you tell him. 

“Sigma.” Sollux says, turns, and walks off towards his old block. 

“O-okay.” you tell the empty hallway. 

That’s more than he’s spoken to you in any previous sweep since you fucked up everything forever. 

There are meals held on the ship between there and Sigma Central, Sollux gets his and leaves to eat elsewhere. You try to pretend it doesn’t hurt and it’s harder for the fact that the entire crew except for Nepeta is all paying very close attention and pretending very poorly that they’re not. 

You get to Sigma Central and Sollux just walks right off of your ship without a backwards glance, right out of your life again. You know you’ll never track him even if you tried, no doubt he’ll hack anything that could give his trail away. Not that you’d try anyway, he clearly doesn’t want you knowing where he is. You’re just glad that you saved his life, if the Empire got their hands on him for real you don’t know how you’d have lived with yourself. 

“You should go after him!” Nepeta insists as you watch Sollux leave through the monitors. 

“Nep, it’s complicated. You don’t know-” you sigh. 

“I DO know what happened, actually!” Nepeta interrupts you. 

“Wait, what? He told you?” you ask as horror creeps up the back of your neck with dread following right after. 

“No, I heard it from someone he did tell it to.” Nepeta says and looks at you challengingly. 

“Oh god, that’s- so lots of people know how terrible I am. That’s great.” you whine in distress. 

“You’re not terrible, you’re stupid. VERY STUPID. And also a huge jerk but I know you’re not a bad purrson. You could be BETTER though, like, maybe you could talk to him.” Nepeta says loudly. More crew are totally not listening in. 

“I’m not talking about this and for unrelated reasons I’m leaving.” you say and limp out of the room. 

“You need to do something about that leg!” Nepeta shouts after you. You hobble faster. 

Unfortunately there’s not many places you can avoid your determined and stealthy friend on one spaceship and she determines that your leg as it is has passed the point of healing and you’re going to need bits removed and cybernetically replaced. Luckily she knows just the guy to do it. 

Terezi is also very insistent that you get fixed up and demands that you turn around back the way you came, past where you dropped Sollux off, and to the planet that Equius calls home. You’ve never actually been in person to Carrix-4 being that the only person there you know is Equius and whenever you’re close he’s busy with Nepeta, you tend to just see Equius when he’s involved with rebel activity off of his planet. Also, Carrix-4 despite being a perfectly positioned planet and right in the middle of a communication hub of multiple stations and satellites is a shithole planet where it’s almost always permanently nighttime and is also globe chillingly cold. Sure it’s fine if you happen to be a coldblooded so and so but you’re not. Even when Nepeta visits the place she complains of being cold.

You take a shuttle down there determined not to wear one of your old sweaters that Nepeta forced you to take with you. You are Karkat Vantas, rebel and famous pirate captain, you have not worn dorky turtleneck sweaters since you became a pirate and you will not start again now. 

You last twenty near frozen minutes before you cave and put the damn thing on. 

For some reason Equius has seen fit to not meet you so you have to get public transport to his place but thankfully Nepeta left you instructions for that. She thinks of everything. You try not to look obviously like a pirate but you think the sweater helps there. No, you’re no pirate, you’re just a cold sweater wearing man with fantastic taste in long coats and knee high boots. Yep. 

The fingerprint plate on Equius’s door opens for you and as you step inside you hear the sound of your name echoing around the hive, spoken by the automatic system. You have some manners so you wait and soon enough a startled Equius walks into the room. 

“Karkat, what are you doing here?” he asks in surprise. 

“Did you think I was getting in tomorrow or something?” you ask, limping over to him. 

“No, I didn’t know you were coming at all. What happened to your leg?” Equius asks, walking over and steadying you. 

“What? Nepeta didn’t tell you?” you ask in surprise. 

“She didn’t tell me anything. Karkat, you really cannot be here.” Equius says in a hushed voice. 

“Why, is something wrong? Is there empire activity I didn’t know about or something? I just came because I’m worried I’m going to lose my leg and Nep said you could help but I don’t know why she didn’t tell you.” you say, feeling totally lost. 

“I will… I will call her. Privately, one moment, Captain.” Equius nods and dials his palmhusk and holds it delicately to his ear. 

You stand with your weight going through your good leg only and rub just above the injured part where it’s starting to cramp from the cold. 

“Nepeta, it’s me. Why did you send-” Equius stops and pauses to listen. 

“Yes, I understand that part but I haven’t seen it myself yet. But it’s not about that. I’m sure you didn’t know that he’s-” Equius pauses again and frowns. 

“Nepeta, we talked about this. No you can’t- Well, yes I see very well that practically you CAN do this but you should not. He’ll only leave.” Equius says. 

“I- That would require an imperial mandate that- oh. That’s a gross misuse of legal power to- a SEARCH? Nepeta we could be caught! That’s- well they can’t possibly all work for… no. I forbid this.” Equius stamps his foot on the floor and you watch as the tile splinters. 

“No… No… No… No…” Equius says, pausing between each and you just know that somewhere Nepeta is countering each no with a yes. Gag. 

“Nepeta I demand you undo all of this right now. Nepeta?” Equius pulls the palmhusk away from his face and looks at it. 

“She hung up on me.” Equius says softly. 

Oooh, she’s in trouble. 

“Is there a problem? That sounded like a problem.” you say. 

“The network isn’t working, I can’t call her back. But there’s no way our network can be down unless she… oh. Oh no. Stay here, I have to-” Equius says in a hurry, turning away from you towards the staircase. It means that you’re already looking at the staircase when someone else comes down them. 

Sollux. 

It’s not because of the cold that your backbone suddenly feels like it’s been drenched in ice, leaving you frozen in place. You stand there open mouthed and he looks at you in shock. 

“Before this devolves messily I did not know this was going to happen, Karkat did not know you were here either.” Equius says loudly into the stunned silence. 

“Oh fuck. I didn’t know, Nepeta must have… shit, sorry, I’ll just leave. Who needs two legs anyway? I’ll just go.” you blurt out, stumbling backwards towards the door. 

“Wait, Karkat you can’t leave!” Equius calls out and you stop. 

“The hell he can’t!” Sollux shouts. 

“Yeah, I’ll go.” you agree. 

“No, you can’t. Nepeta and Terezi are pulling some kind of stupid and ill-advised stunt that I was just trying to talk her out of but she hung up on me. She must have cut the network somehow.” Equius tells you both. 

“That explains why everything is broken, it doesn’t explain why he can’t fuck off.” Sollux snarls.

“Because pirate activity has caused all of the ports to shut down and now there are empire forces sweeping the planet for pirates and rebels, people working for Terezi have orders to keep this place and this place alone off of their searches. Apparently if either of you leave and are caught you’ll be taken away, ‘rescued’ and put right back here. That’s what Nepeta told me and if she has Terezi’s backing I believe her.” Equius explains. 

You are going to have words with your friends when you see them next, very loud words, very obscene and threatening words. 

“Fuck that, I’ll take my chances out there. Call me when he’s gone.” Sollux snaps and drags a thick coat out of his sylladex. You can’t help the sting, he’d rather take his chances with empire forces than even be in the same building as you. 

“Sollux, be reasonable. I just have to fix his leg, if you wait it out they will have to let him leave. He’s the leader of the resistance, they need him.” Equius says reasonably, his strong hand against the door to stop Sollux opening it. 

“I’m the what?” you blurt out and Equius looks at you like you’re an idiot. 

“Fucking Terezi, fucking Nepeta.” Sollux hisses furiously.

It’s probably a show of how serious this situation is that Equius doesn’t react to someone badmouthing his moirail. Sollux rips his coat off and flies upstairs in an arc of violent red and blue light. Equius sighs and takes his hand from the door. He looks you up and down. 

“I think you had better let me see that leg.” he says. 

Equius takes you down the stairs into his basement lab which is sterile and fantastically high tech all at the same time. He has you strip off all your clothes below the waist and your coat too, which you don’t appreciate in this cold. It’s warmer in here than outside but it’s still damned cold. 

Equius asks you the story of what happened to your leg as he examines it, takes scans and samples to run tests on. You give him the short version and explain what you’ve been doing with your leg to try to look after it. Equius pulls a face as he looks through the scans on his tablet. 

“You cared for it fine but you were never going to save the muscle here, the force of the injury made cell death a certainty.” Equius says and shows you a muscular scan that means nothing to you. 

“So are we talking losing the leg and getting a new one or are we talking remove the bad parts and cybernetically replacing those bits?” you ask, dreading the answer. 

“Ah, if this had happened sweeps ago then you would have lost the leg for sure. Thankfully my skills have improved since then, I believe that I can fix you without removing your entire leg.” Equius smiles, even if it is a little strained. 

“I will need to bandage this up and make the parts that I’ll put in there but I can probably do the surgery the day after tomorrow.” Equius says as he leans to the side to reach for a bandage. 

He pauses, though you don’t know why, and then looks at you. He takes the bandage without looking and starts to clean your wound more than you already had, he’s obviously thinking hard about something. He looks up, you think at you but his sunglasses are so dark you just can’t tell. 

“I know about what happened with you and Sollux.” Equius says plainly. 

So Sollux told him. 

You can’t help but wonder if there’s a reason why Sollux is here. Are the two of them flush, are they just friends or are they friends and MORE like they were when you were younger? You hate how much that idea hurts, you have no right to that pain but there it is anyway. 

“Oh.” you say because you have to say something. 

“I’ve known you a long time Karkat, I like to think I know the kind of man you are and Nepeta- well her thoughts are pretty clear. So I’m sure it’s more complex than I’ve been told but-” Equius says slowly as he bandages your leg. You wish you weren’t having this conversation half naked. Frankly you wish you weren’t having it at all. 

“I don’t know what Sollux told you but I’m not going to sit here and act like I’m not the worst bastard in the universe because I basically am. If you’re hoping for some defense that makes me magically not total shit then I don’t have one to give you because I’m fucked up and I fucked up, I don’t get a defense.” you tell him firmly. 

“But-” Equius pauses and sighs. He tightens up the bandage and gets up. 

“Regardless of what you think to yourself it’s pretty obvious to me that some kind of an explanation might make him feel better.” Equius tells you firmly and hands you your clothes. 

“What can I possibly say to explain myself? I’m not looking for him to forgive me, I don’t deserve forgiveness!” you protest but take your clothes anyway because you’re half naked and it’s freezing here. 

“You can explain without asking him to forgive you. But it isn’t my business, which other people I know would do well to remember.” Equius adds that last part through gritted teeth, you’re glad you’re not Nepeta that’s for sure. 

“Look after your leg, my hive is yours for your stay, the nutrition block is on the ground level floor, help yourself. I have a guest room on the floor above at the end by the window and if you are looking to avoid Sollux he normally contains himself to what was once my attic.” Equius adds that last part in a tone that suggests that he’s not totally pleased with Sollux up there. 

You guess your question must show on your face because Equius answers. 

“He showed up here after I settled down here, he just wanted to stay for a bit and he was in a bad way. Besides he offered to help me with technical matters around getting my hive set up so he stayed for that. He left for a while but it wasn’t convenient for him to take his things with him so he left them and he would come and go on missions same as me but his things kept building up and now he just… lives here.” Equius frowns and looks up at the ceiling. 

“I think, anyway.” he adds. 

“You think he lives here? Either he lives here or he doesn’t.” you point out as you rather ungracefully get into your clothes. 

“Well he doesn’t always, sometimes he goes away for long stretches of time but then he comes back. Besides he is helpful and we are friends and it seems… rude to ask him now if he’s living with me. Besides he’s a perfectly polite guest. Uh, hivemate? He pays for his share of the bills and helps me with things when I ask.” Equius says awkwardly. 

You want to say that’s the dumbest thing that you’ve ever heard. You want to say that Equius not just asking Sollux if he’s going to be living there permanently or if he’s just keeping his shit in Equius attic is absurd. Yet you’re the one unable to hold a full conversation with your former best friend because you screwed up everything you said to him so badly that he won’t talk to you anymore. From the look on Equius’ face you’re certain that if you try to make any comment on his living situation that he’ll tell you just that. 

“Very well, carry on.” you say instead and pull your coat back on. 

“You don’t need to wear your coat indoors, Karkat.” Equius tells you. 

“It’s COLD. Still, I’ll get out of your hair and go upstairs. It sounds like you have a lot of work to do if I want a working leg again. By the way I appreciate this a lot.” you tell him and at that Equius does smile. 

“You should get some rest and, Nepeta would want me to say, probably also talk to Sollux.” he adds. 

“Thanks.” you say instead of ‘like hell I will’. It’s just more polite. 

It is exactly zero fun getting up stairs with a dodgy leg and it takes you a while. Equius’ guest room is perfectly pleasant in that bland way that guest rooms are. There’s a bookshelf filled with books that are of no interest to you being that they’re either technical manuals or old romance books that you’re sure are Nepeta’s. The furniture is nice enough but it all feels like stuff that used to be somewhere else until that room got an upgrade so it got shuffled into this spare room. It’s charmingly domestic and you’re actually weirdly enthused about a hive that feels like a proper home and you’re happy that your friend has this for himself. (Himself and possibly Sollux too who he may or may not be dating or sleeping with.)

You try to shake THAT thought from your head and go about pouring sopor powder into the coon and kicking the button at the base to get it filling with water to the right level, at that point you kick the button again and it starts agitating the water so it’ll start to form sopor. That’ll take a few hours at least so you figure that you’ll dump some of your stuff into the attached ablutionblock and then sit down and wait in that nice if slightly older looking armchair over there. 

You open up your tablet and find that indeed not only is there no wifi but there is also no external signal and it seems like every satellite is down. You’re both very angry that your friends did this to you but also kind of impressed that they managed an incredibly well executed operation to isolate you like this and you’ll be very mad if they’re not this efficient in future operations. Not that you’re their boss or anything. What even was that dumb thing Equius said about you being the leader? You’re not the leader, if there was a leader of the resistance you’d know about it. You know basically everyone in the resistance and you’ve never met any leader!

You have basically nothing to do. The local network is still running but that’ll have no internet and you don’t have the password for it. Besides you managing to guess the password is about as likely as you sneezing onto a tissue and that pattern of snot being exactly the formula for the theory of everything or some other high fancy physics thing. Anyway just owning a technical device within ten miles of Sollux is basically a dead certainty that he’s already hacked it and you doubt him watching you try to get into his system would go well for you. 

He might make your tablet blow up and then you’d definitely lose your leg and maybe other parts. So no thanks, you’ll mind your business. You spend your time reading reports that you’d downloaded but not yet opened and composing replies that you can’t send yet and likely will be redundant by the time you get online again. You wonder if he is watching you and if so what he’s thinking and you hate that you’re thinking it. 

You sleep and when you wake up you have a hot shower, eventually convince yourself to leave it and hobble downstairs and damn near cling to the coffee machine for warmth as it makes you a drink. Why is this hive so damn cold you’re going to find the thermostat right now. You notice it mostly because of the trail of post it notes by it that are stuck to the wall. You know how long they’ve been there because Equius dates his, the first one is from a perigee ago. 

D --> Sollux - I have removed the earlier notes Do not touch the thermostat  
ii touched iit  
D --> Sollux - Stop it at once  
2top makiing the hiive cold then leave iit here and ii won’t touch iit  
D --> Sollux - The hive is at a perfectly a%eptible temperature as is.   
iit’2 my thermo2tat, ii put iit iin  
D --> Sollux - You’re being absurd, stop touching it  
ii put iit back two the proper temperature. ii touched iit. ii liicked iit two.  
D --> Sollux - That is obscene, cease this at once.  
Nah  
D --> Sollux - YES!  
Nope  
  
The notes go on like that for a while. From the slightly discoloured marks on the paint you think these notes have been going on for quite some time. You decide not to touch the thermostat. You spend a lot of time in your adopted block and though you’re on edge and listening the whole time you don’t actually hear Sollux at all, but then why would you hear him moving around? He can fly at will. 

You don’t want to fuck around on your tablet because even though writing things down would likely help you organise your thoughts it would also mean most likely broadcasting your thoughts to Sollux. Bad idea. Sollux does not want or need to read a whole document of you justifying your behaviour or rolling your thoughts about your psychological brokenness to him. It means you have to find other ways to entertain yourself. 

Being a pirate and a rebel, despite people’s opinions and ideas, is often very boring. It’s boring interspersed with a lot of stress and high energy stuff. The point is there’s a lot of ways to pass the time that you’re acquainted with you end up doodling a bunch of playing cards, obviously not the base ones but the more intricate face cards with their mirrored patterns. Then when you’ve done that for all four suits you get bored and start making origami shit out of that paper. The whole pattern looks pretty messed up on the origami things you make and you fold and refold it into a few different things eventually that bores you so you put that away and go downstairs to try to find Equius. 

Your friend is in his lab doing something complex looking with some gross partially biological and partially mechanical… parts. Look, you’re not the tech guy ok? 

“Hello Karkat.” Equius says without looking up. 

“I guess I’ve got a pretty distinctive walk right now, huh?” you say as you look down at your leg. 

“Exactly, but soon you should be back to normal. I think I should be able to operate tonight actually. You’ll be awake of course but I’ll just block the path between your lower body and your thinksponge.” Equius explains. 

“Right. I don’t need to watch, do I?” you ask him and try not to grimace.

“You don’t. I would suggest you find a book or something to distract yourself with. Normally I would advise streaming a movie, that’s what the others do when they need maintenance but with the internet down that is unlikely. Of course you could watch something that I own.” Equius offers you as he reaches for a tiny set of tweezers and does something complicated with the metal thing in the petri dish before him. 

You try to think of a polite way to say that you’d rather watch him root around in your leg than watch his sweaty highblood movies no doubt filled with rippling muscles and noble steeds. The facts that Equius is your dear old friend and that he’s a sweaty weirdo are unfortunately both true at once. Actually he’s not sweating at all anymore, perhaps he always needed to be kept at below freezing to function and you just never knew. 

“Something tells me that any tech I try to use here might prove mysteriously unreliable anyway, a book might be a smarter idea.” you say instead. Sollux was never above inconveniencing you when he was mad and he is rightfully VERY MAD. Taking away a chance for you to distract yourself in something like this won’t actively hurt you but it won’t be good, it’s a ripe opportunity. A book is safer, even Sollux can’t hack paper. 

“Nepeta has plenty, feel free to take your pick upstairs.” Equius offers. 

Right, romance books. 

You leave Equius be and start scouting out all of the bookshelves that you can find in areas of the hive that seem safe to go in and aren’t anyone else’s block. Just like in your guest room it’s either romance novels or technical manuals. You stand there and pick a romance book at random, flipping it over to read the blurb on the back. 

A daring tale of pity and intrigue featuring two star crossed matesprits whose-

Nope. Next one.

When Roughrun encounters her former vacillating matesprit/kismesis at a murder scene she is faced with-

Hell no. 

You flip through more and more books but all of them are about trolls with such intense romantic feelings that make so much fucking sense. They feel the right thing for someone and then they go do the thing then it’s happy ever after! Just reading the backs of these books makes your hands shake and your digestion sac clench. You used to spend so much time reading this shit and trying to convince yourself that you felt this, you were like this, really you were. But you’re NOT and you hate it. You cram Nepeta’s book back off of the shelf and look around for something else as your throat feels thick and your eyes are stinging threateningly. In the end you grab a book detailing the installation and maintenance of solar panels on space stations, you’d rather read that cover to cover than anything of Nepeta’s. 

Equius seems puzzled by your choice of literature but you’re not inviting any discussion on the matter. Pleasingly you’re able to keep your underwear on for the surgery, provided you roll one leg up in a really awkward way. You don’t know if this is because having checked you out for other injuries near your main one he has determined that your clothes are not in the way or if Equius simply doesn’t want his head that close to your bare junk for several hours. You’re not taking offense to that, you also don’t want his head that close to your bare junk for several hours. 

When Equius numbs your spinal cord the feeling is… unsettling and you have a wave of sympathy for Tavros and resolve to talk to him about this later. Although he was probably involved in setting you up down here so you’ll express your sympathy by not kicking him in the leg like he deserves for double crossing you. 

After two hours you know more about solar panels than you had ever cared to, you have renewed your distaste for seeing your own blood and you think you might be put off of eating meat for a while. Which is fine, Equius doesn’t eat any anyway. He leaves you on a padded surgical platform with your leg bandaged and cleaned, a glass of water in reach with a snuggleplane and instructions to sleep it off. You can’t feel your legs just yet but that’ll come back, Equius said he’d give you painkillers when that happened but understandably he also wants to know that your nerves still work so he’s holding off. 

You do drift off eventually, cuddling your borrowed book on solar panels tight to your chest. You’re not sure what it is that wakes you but you do wake up. You wake up to see Sollux standing at your side, his eyes narrowed angrily. Fuck, you still can’t really feel your legs beyond a dull throb and you’re damn sure that you can’t just get up and leave. It’s pretty obvious that Sollux knows this too. 

“I hate you.” he opens with. 

“That’s- I think that’s pretty reasonable considering everything.” you say as your voice pitches higher with distress. 

“Shut up.” Sollux hisses at you, so you do. 

With you silent he’s just standing there, glaring at you. Your bloodpusher is racing for all the wrong reasons and your claws are denting your book. 

“I’ve been telling myself for ages that it doesn’t matter WHY you did it, just that you did was enough but it’s not exactly helped. Besides, you’re not going anywhere so maybe getting some answers would be a good idea. Start talking, Karkat.” Sollux growls. 

You open your mouth, trying to find anything to say but you’re at a loss. Thankfully Sollux decides that he has more to say. 

“Actually, fuck that. Why should I let you decide how this goes? You’re the worst. I’m asking the questions!” Sollux snaps and paces about for a few moments. 

“You knew how I felt about you, didn’t you?” Sollux asks, you mutely nod your head. 

“So you…” Sollux seems at a loss for a second, “did you plan it? You decided that you knew how I felt and you were just going to fuck me for whatever reason?” 

“No! There was no plan.” you insist. 

“Well that rules out all of the theories where you were trying your whole life to make me red for you only to use it to destroy me or whatever.” Sollux mutters. Does he really think that’s what you were doing?

Sollux leans against one of Equius’s counters that earlier had been covered in surgical equipment. 

“Were you drunk? You seemed sober to me.” Sollux asks quietly. 

“No,” you sigh and close your eyes, “maybe I wasn’t totally sober if you ran a test or whatever but it wasn’t that making me do something I wouldn’t have otherwise.” 

“So to recap; you knew how I felt about you, you didn’t have some big plan to do this and you were sober and in your right mind. So, what, you were just bored or wanted to celebrate and thought ‘hey Sollux is desperate for me, that’ll be fun. I just have to tell him I pity him too!’ just so you could break my heart? Or did you not care about that last part?” Sollux demands. 

“No! I didn’t- it wasn’t just so I could pail someone, I wouldn’t do that to you just for that.” you insist. 

“Oh because you care about me so much.” Sollux snorts in disbelief. 

You suppose he has every right to be skeptical about that so you have no good answer, you just hold your book tight and hate yourself a little harder. You didn’t think it could be done but you’re a fucking savant on the matter of self loathing. 

“Alright, let’s say I buy that. Let’s say I believe that you went into pailing me with no bad intentions at all. If that’s true then why the fuck did you change your mind afterwards and rip my bloodpusher out?” Sollux asks. 

You stay silent. 

At least you do until a zap of psionics hits your arm and makes you yelp, your leg throbs at the sudden contraction of your muscles in their startled alarm. 

“That was a question you were supposed to answer. Why? I can’t think that it was that you didn’t like it because you seemed pretty happy at the time and I had the pail to prove it, not to mention no one else has ever complained so I can’t think it was me.” Sollux says. 

“It wasn’t you, you did nothing wrong.” you assure him. 

Yeah he sure as shit didn’t do anything wrong. That whole time (up until you ruined your life) was amazing. It’s not like that memory hasn’t replayed over and over in your head at opportune moments that leave you feeling godawful with guilt afterwards. Yeah, you didn’t let Sollux down because he wasn’t any good. 

“So why then?” Sollux asks again and again you stay silent. He hisses and marches over to your bedside and reaches his hand out for your leg. 

“I could rip this shit out of your leg real slow, you know that? I could damage you so bad that Equius would have to take your whole leg right off, I could make it take a long time you know.” he threatens you. 

You look up at the man who was your best friend. You don’t think he’d do it, he’s a good person and you don’t think he’d torture you no matter how mad he is. But you’re also not stupid enough to say that. Saying ‘you wouldn’t’ when someone threatens something is a pretty safe fast track to them doing it to prove a point. You have to say something. 

“Sollux, I’m sorry. It wasn’t anything you did or said, I didn’t mean to hurt you, it was stupid and selfish and awful. I knew how you felt and I’d always told myself I’d never hurt you with that but I fucked up and I have to live with that. I absolutely deserve you leaving and you hating me. It’s my fault and I’d never ask you to forgive me but I can’t tell you anything that’ll make you feel better about what I did, I’m sorry.” you apologise. 

“What do you mean you can’t?! You were there! You remember it, you’re the one who made those choices, I just want to know why! You weren’t POSSESSED! You absolutely can tell me and you will!” Sollux shouts. 

Surely Equius has heard this by now, why isn’t he coming in here? Please, you need someone to save you. 

“I’m sorry.” you whisper. 

“Fuck your sorry! Answer me!” Sollux snarls. 

You stay silent and Sollux paces in angry little circles for a bit, muttering to himself. 

“I already hate you, it’s not like anything you say can make this worse.” he points out.

Oh, this can absolutely be worse. 

“I must be missing something…” Sollux mumbles. Shit, he always was too smart. 

“You’re still going to hate me so why does it matter? Nothing of it was your fault or because of anything to do with you so there’s no reason for you to have some kind of ‘what if’ about it, I get that you needed to know that but I can’t-” you start. 

“There is something.” Sollux says as he stares at you. 

“There wasn’t someone else…” Sollux says slowly. 

“No, there was never anyone else. Just you.” you tell him quickly, too quickly. You’re helping him rule things out and you shouldn’t!

“I didn’t think so. Which means that if it’s nothing to do with me and there’s no one else then it’s something about you.” Sollux concludes. 

Yes, you’re fundamentally broken.

“It is!” Sollux says, his face lighting up. Excellent job, Karkat, wonderful pirate and rebel you are. Terezi trained you to withstand interrogation and yet here you are giving EVERYTHING away!

“Something that’s worse than me hating you.” Sollux says, thinking aloud and watching you carefully. You keep your face blank.

“If there was some problem with you physically pailing you’d either have not done it or I’d have noticed at the time but there was nothing wrong with you. I know you didn’t have some horrible disease because I’ve had physicals since then that check for everything so you don’t have some exotic space STD. Besides you probably wouldn’t be embarrassed about that to this degree and you’d have told me that at some point if there was a chance it’d hurt me, I think.” Sollux muses. 

“Can we not do this? This won’t help.” you plead. 

“Fuck you, no. I doubt someone threatened you to cut things off with me because who would have known or cared that much and if someone was blackmailing you then you’d have said. And… I mean you’re the one who came onto me, it’s not like I pressured you into anything.” Sollux continues but his tone turns questioning at the end, like he’s doubting himself. 

“You didn’t do anything wrong.” you reiterate and he nods, seemingly believing you. 

Sollux goes quiet, you guess he’s thinking. You hope that he’s going to stop this and leave, that’s what you want. He can’t know. He folds his arms and stands there, he seems like he has something to say but can’t quite make himself say it. For your part you just look down at your hands and feel generally pretty shitty and guilty. 

“You said you pitied me.” Sollux says and you flinch to hear him say it. 

“If you weren’t trying to hurt me, you weren’t drunk and no one made you do it then why did you say that?” Sollux asks quietly. 

Because you’re a fucking liar, that’s why you said it. 

“Did you pity me? At all?” Sollux asks. 

Pity him? Like those trolls in those romance books upstairs that you’ve never been anything like? Like the perfectly normal and wonderful pity he felt for you of all people that you just can’t replicate? You told him you felt the same as him and that’s the biggest lie ever, but it’s not like you felt nothing for him. On the contrary you feel SO MUCH for him, it’s just none of it was right. 

“Answer me!” Sollux snaps. 

“I can’t.” you whisper. You can’t tell him, you’d rather he hated you. 

“That’s not an answer.” Sollux says as he storms over to you. He stands there just waiting but you can’t and won’t say anything. 

“Yes or no, it’s not that hard!” he demands. 

You can’t do this. You try to get up but your stupid legs won’t work and as you try your new muscle screeches at you in agony, at least you can tell Equius he hooked all of your nerves up right. As you strain to get off of the surgical platform Sollux’s eyes go wide and he shoves you back. 

“Are you crazy?! If you try walking on that right away you’ll rip the whole thing right out of your leg!” he says in alarm. 

“Weren’t you threatening to do that for me?” you point out and Sollux winces and looks away. He was never going to do it, you called it. 

“But you’d really rather risk that than tell me if you pitied me or not.” he says, correctly. You stay silent on that matter, your stance should be clear enough there. 

“Fine.” Sollux hisses and lets you go. He’s not telling you that you can get up, instead he’s leaving in a trail of angry sparks. You flop back onto the platform properly and rub at your watering eyes, you cling tightly to your book like the diagrams of solar panels can be of any comfort to you. 

Equius eventually checks on you, dispenses pain medication and carries you to the guest block and gives you a stick to walk with for the times when you absolutely have to get up but you shouldn’t be walking much at all. Pain medication or not you still feel that it hurts when you try so you’re pretty easily dissuaded from attempting it too much. 

You should be bored but who can feel boredom when you have the world’s most thrilling solar panel manual to read interspersed with being curled up on the loungeplank in your room quietly crying or marinading in your own guilt? It’s a fun and exciting time to be you, also next time you see Terezi and Nepeta you’re absolutely going to punch them both for doing this to you. 

The real downside of being here is that your temporary block happens to be in the same hive as Sollux’s block. 

“I’ve been thinking about it.” Sollux announces as he walks into your room. You can’t do anything to stop him, not in this state. You grab a cushion off of the loungeplank that you’re on and press it into your face. Maybe it’ll smother you to death or perhaps you can just scream yourself hoarse into it. It turns out that you can do neither because Sollux takes it and throws it away. 

“You’re acting like you used to about your blood colour. Before we all knew about it I mean. I’ve seen shame on your face often enough to recognise it.” Sollux says as he looks down at you. 

Fuck him for knowing you so well. 

“But I can’t work it out. If I pitied you and you pitied me why would you change your mind like that and what reason for doing it would make you ashamed? Or if you lied about it why would you do that and then feel ashamed, or so ashamed that you’d rather take a shitload of actual pain than tell me?” He asks. 

“This won’t help, I’m not answering.” you say and look away. 

“Yeah, ok, definitely shame. If you’d just wanted a fuck with no strings attached you could have found basically anyone in the rebellion or pretty much any pirate who wasn’t inclined to shank you, I’ve seen people hit on you plenty. And if it had to be me then it’s not like you didn’t know I was theoretically cool with the friends with benefits thing, you could have asked.” Sollux goes on. You grimace and try not to wonder about him and Equius again. 

“That’s not YOUR thing though so I can rule that out.” Sollux concludes. 

You’re giving too much away, you try to put your book over your face but Sollux takes it again. Maybe you can talk him out of this. 

“Can’t you just keep hating me for what I did? This won’t help.” you say. 

“Karkat, you used to be my best friend. I’ve pitied you almost my whole life, I left the planet with you, I became a pirate, I joined a revolution for you. Why can’t you just tell me? I mean look at you, this is clearly hurting you too which doesn’t make SENSE! Just tell me!” Sollux says. 

There’s a form of execution that the Empress has used before, she used it maybe fifty sweeps ago on some advisor of hers who stole her things and tried to make a run for it. She caught him and tied him to the ground, placed a metal plate on him and then loaded up everything that he stole or it’s value in gold onto the plate until it crushed him to death. Sollux layering on every way you screwed this up feels like that. 

Eventually given enough pain everyone breaks. 

“I’d rather you hated me for what I did and not… not…” you choke out, Sollux is hanging on your every word but you don’t know what you can say. 

“Not what?” he prompts. 

“Not what I am!” you snap at him. 

“What you- what, a mutant? KK it’s not like I didn’t know about that.” Sollux says in bewilderment. 

“It’s not just my blood colour that’s mutated. Every part of me is a filthy, awful, mutant the whole way through! Every part of me is broken, okay?! I tried to stay away from you like that and not… and not do that because of it but I fucked up and you should hate me! I didn’t want you to know and I didn’t want to hurt you but I’m useless as always!” you shout. 

“...What?” Sollux says but you squirm away from him and face towards the back of the loungeplank. If he wants to move you he can but you can’t stand to see him looking at you. 

“You’re ashamed of yourself? But I’ve never had a problem with you being a mutant, I’ve never cared. What do you mean it’s more than your blood? You BEING a mutant was one of the things that I pitied you for!” Sollux insists and you whine, he doesn’t get it. 

“What would any part of your mutation have to do with pity and why would you be ashamed of it with me of all people? Didn’t you trust me then?” Sollux asks and you cringe in on yourself but stay silent. 

“Is it really worse than this?” Sollux asks. 

“I don’t know Sollux, would you rather the person whose opinion of you matters the most hate you for something awful you DID or the abhorrent thing that you ARE that you have no control over? You’re going to hate me either way so I’d rather this way if it’s all the same to you.” you say, your voice slightly muffled by cushions. 

Sollux makes an aggravated noise and suddenly you’re floating, picked up and sat upright facing him. He seems pissed. 

“So glad to know you apparently never trusted me either.” Sollux snaps. 

“I’m disappointing all around.” you agree. 

“You know I’m not going to let this go and you can’t leave. I can’t hate you more than I do so just tell me and I’ll go away and stop bothering you about it.” Sollux insists. 

You just want him to leave you to hate yourself in the shambles of your former life in PEACE, damnit. But how do you even explain this to him? You shuffle through your sylladex as if something will help when you land on your battered origami paper from before, it’s too crumpled to be of use but it gives you an idea. 

“Pass me that paper.” you ask him quietly, holding out your hand for the pad of paper you’d abandoned near the armchair. Sollux gives you an odd look but does as you ask. You tear a sheet out and carefully tear it into an exact square and fold it into four then unfold it. You still have your pencil in your sylladex so you start sketching out quadrant signs.

“Karkat if you’re making a shipping diagram I’m going to lose my shit.” Sollux warns you. 

“I’m way happier not explaining anything, if you’re willing to go away and stop asking about this now then I won’t stop you.” you say, your hand stopping. 

“Like hell.” Sollux says immediately. 

You continue drawing in silence, you feel numb at the idea that you’re going to have to speak the things that are wrong with you for the first time. The point of terror and self loathing passed way back and now you’re just tired, exhausted with hating yourself. The conclusion is foregone here, Sollux will be disgusted with you, hate you, these are things you just know are true so in a way there’s no suspense. You take the paper and fold it strangely for a while so the parts inside all overlap weirdly. 

“Normal trolls have four quadrants and they feel the things they’re supposed to within them, sometimes people switch but that’s going from one to another.” you say as you change to folding the paper into a small flush quadrant symbol. 

“You pitied me.” you say and hold the slightly ugly looking heart sign up for him. 

“I did.” he agrees. 

“You wanted to know if I lied about how I felt when I said I pitied you too and I did but it’s not that simple.” you mumble. 

“If you lied about pitying me that sounds pretty simple to ME.” Sollux hisses. 

“Well, how about every time you also felt the thing I say I put my pencil through the paper, huh?” you ask, holding the heart and the pencil up. Sollux looks at you suspiciously but nods. 

“You were the most important person in my life.” you tell him and for a moment Sollux seems taken aback until he remembers that he’s meant to be confirming if he felt the same. He nods and you perforate the heart with your pencil. 

“I trusted you.” you say and he nods and glares at you. 

“I wanted to protect you from things, it hurt to think of you in pain.” you go on, he nods a little more sombre this time.

“I… obviously I had physical wants to do with you, you don’t need to agree to that one. We pailed, it’s pretty clear.” you say and don’t look up. 

“I wanted to be able to be yours, I saw other people together and I wanted the same thing for us.” you whisper, you don’t wait for Sollux to confirm it this time, you just punch a hole through the paper. 

“I wanted what was best for you, I wanted you to be happy, I respected you, I valued your opinion, I wanted you to think I was someone worthwhile.” you list off, stabbing holes and holes in the paper. 

“Karkat that’s pity, you pitied me. Why did-” Sollux starts. 

“No, shut up. That’s what I’m saying, for you it was pity and I felt those things too. I wasn’t just making shit up about things I didn’t feel so you’d put your bulge in me, I wouldn’t do that!” you snap at him. 

You glare at your knees and start unfurling the paper, trying not to rip it. 

“But I’m messed up, mutated and my feelings are wrong. Because, yeah, I felt all of that for you but my feelings don’t confine themselves to quadrants like they’re supposed to. I feel everything. I’m not talking about flipping from one thing to another, I’m saying I feel everything for you.” you say, the present tense slipping past your lips without you meaning to. You toss the unfurled paper at Sollux, there are plenty of holes in the flush quadrants but just as many in every other. 

“I felt as much pale shit for you as I did red, ash in the right situations and pitch just as much. I don’t have quadrants I just have THAT.” you confess. It feels like throwing up. 

Sollux stares at the paper for a moment and then at you. 

“What?” he says, sounding so plainly confused. 

“You heard me.” you say under your breath and avoid looking at him. 

“That’s not how quadrants work, that’s not how PEOPLE work! You said you pitied me-” Sollux starts and you actually kick the paper out of his hand with your good leg. 

“I said I pitied you because I already made the drunk mistake of kissing you. I’d had feelings for you for forever and now that you knew I thought maybe I could just…” you close your eyes and press your hands to your face. 

“I thought ‘fuck, if there’s anyone who I could force myself to be normal for it’s Sollux. I care about him more than anyone else, I’ve got enough red feelings here I just have to ignore everything else forever and it’ll go away’ and because I’m a moron I finally gave in and tried it. I was so red for you and it was great but I woke up afterwards and.” the lump in your throat grows so big that you can’t talk. 

“And?” Sollux says. 

Shame and disgust wells up within you, you look aside to the doors to the tiny little balcony that Equius has attached to this room. It’s so small you’d not bothered going out there before. It’s far preferable to look at that than Sollux right now. 

“I woke up and I still felt red but I felt so SO pale for you. I couldn’t be normal for even one whole day, how the fuck could I do it forever? I couldn’t lie to you like that and you’d know something was wrong, that I was wrong. So…” you trail off. Sollux knows what you did all too well. 

Sollux is silent, you figure he doesn’t know what to say. 

“So there, I told you. You said you’d stop bothering me if I did so why don’t you leave and hate me somewhere else and let me go back to being miserable on my own, thanks.” you say. 

Sollux doesn’t get up and go, he just stares at you. You’re not into being stared at like some lab animal, you know you’re a freak but this isn’t a freak SHOW thanks. If he won’t go, then you will. You grab the cane that Equius left you and make a hobbling break for the balcony, wrenching the door open and shutting it behind you. 

You hear him knock on the glass behind you as you lean against it but you’re not turning around and you’re not opening it, not until he’s gone.

“You can’t stay out there forever.” Sollux points out. 

Sollux has a point, it’s about minus a thousand out here. You shove your coat on and ignore the cold, occasionally glancing back to see Sollux pacing the room deep in thought. Eventually he does leave, perhaps he thinks you’ll come inside and stop freezing yourself if he does. Or maybe he’s come to the conclusion that he’s disgusted by every part of you and can’t stand to be near you. Either way he’s not watching you now. 

You don’t want to stay around Sollux anymore, you told him everything about how awful and broken you are and you just can’t stay around to hear every thought he has on it. He didn’t get it, people aren’t like that. No shit and yet here you are. But he’s right, you can’t stay on this balcony forever but if you go back inside he’ll no doubt have more to say.

Karkat Vantas is trapped on a balcony. 

Except you’re not JUST Karkat Vantas are you? You are Karkat Vantas, famous pirate and rebel. What kind of pirate and rebel would you be if you didn’t have a grappling hook in your sylladex at all times? You hook it on the edge of the balcony, hold your cane between your teeth then grab the rope and jump. You descend to the ground with practiced ease, retrieve your hook and go on your way. 

You flick the collar of your coat up against the cold and try to walk as normally as you can but from the searing pain in your leg you’re pretty sure you’ve ripped something. You walk on anyway. 

Your goal is to get to the spaceport and commandeer or sneak aboard a ship that’s leaving and then find your way to safety, if not that then-

“Hands up, rebel scum.” an angry voice says. You turn to see three imperial agents with their guns trained on you. One of them might be on your side but you don’t know. You could probably take them. Instead you raise the hand that’s not supporting you on the cane and try not to wince too much as they arrest you and take you into custody. 

They try to interrogate you but they’re not as good at it as Sollux, they tell you that you’ll be brought to the Empress and killed. Ok, sure. The sheer amount that you don’t care seems to unsettle them and they don’t know what to do with you so in the end they just throw you in a cell on their ship and start flying. 

You’re not surprised when the ship is attacked, when the lights are cut and you’re plunged into darkness. You’re not alarmed when the door is thrown open and several of your crew are there with Nepeta at the front. She pulls you to your feet, your hands are still cuffed behind your back and she starts to talk. 

“Karkat we were so worried, you-” Nepeta says. That’s as far as she gets before you headbutt her in the face and break her nose. She stumbles back, her hand over her face and your crew stare at the pair of you in shock. You’ve never had a real fight on anything as long as they’ve been with you. 

“You fucking DESERVED THAT.” you hiss at her. 

“I just wanted to hel-” she says thickly. 

“Shut up, I don’t care. We’re leaving.” you snap and hobble past her.

You don’t shake her off when she grabs your arm to help you walk by bearing your weight. You say nothing when you get back on your ship, you just limp to your room using the wall for support now instead of her and lock yourself in your block. 

The next day Equius shows up, he berates you for opening your wound, patches you up and says nothing about you breaking Nepeta’s nose. You can only assume that means he doesn’t think you were entirely wrong to do so. He leaves you medication to take for the infection you’ve no doubt picked up in your escape and leaves. 

You have no contact with Nepeta or the rest of your crew beyond telling them to move the ship to an isolated moon that’s hard to find and staying there, even that you only do through your tablet. The ship is turned in such a way that when you’re curled up miserably on your loungeplank you can see the silvery moon below you. You think you might just lay here forever. Having Sollux walk out on you hurt so much and you hated yourself for it but telling him what you really are and having him shut you down like that is so much worse. A few of your friends, sorry “friends” troll you over the next few days but you ignore them in favour of the hollow pit of misery you’ve carved out for yourself in the dim light of the moon. 

When the moon moves you notice. Of course it’s not the moon, it’s the ship. Your ship is moving, you know the soft sound of its engines like the beat of your own bloodpusher. You jerk yourself upright and fumble for the cane Equius gave you. After a brief struggle to your feet you’re angrily marching as best as you can to the bridge of your ship intent on beating the person who moved it against your orders. 

“WHO THE FUCK MOVED MY SHIP?!” you bellow as you burst into the room. 

Nepeta holds up her hands and shakes her head, the rest of your crew in the room look terrified but not guilty. 

Your chair turns around, the one you sit in when you’re up on the bridge, only… 

“Sollux.” you whisper. 

“Captain.” Sollux says with something a little too mean looking to be a smile playing at the edge of his mouth. 

“Since you seemed intent on doing fuck all and were ‘incapacitated’ I decided to move the ship. Since I outrank everyone else here I can do that.” he says. 

Why is he here? What’s he talking about?

“You don’t outrank-”

“You never fired me for deserting. I checked several times, I’m still second in command here. You kept paying me too.” Sollux interrupts you. 

Damnit.

“What do you want?” you ask wearily, leaning heavily on your cane with one hand and rubbing your face with the other. 

Sollux stands up, unfolding himself all long limbed and gorgeous in a way that you hate him for being and you hate yourself for still adoring it. He nods towards the door you came in through and walks through it. You’re not staying here with almost your entire crew watching you so you follow Sollux. He’s waiting in the hallway and when the door behind you shuts he speaks again. 

“Equius told me I had to remind you to look after your leg.” Sollux tells you. 

“Was that all you came here for?” you ask flatly. 

“I would say he could have just trolled you but everyone insists on telling me that you’re not answering them.” Sollux says sharply and looks down at you. 

“Well, great, you told me. Message received. I don’t know how you got on my ship but you can leave now.” you grumble and push past him. 

“I work here, actually.” Sollux says to you, making you stop in the hallway. 

“Why? Why do you want to? You hate me!” you shout, turning around to glare at him. 

“I don’t, actually.” Sollux says like it’s that easy. 

“What?” you say dumbly. 

“I don’t hate you. I’m really pissed at you still but I don’t hate you.” he says with a frown on his face. 

He doesn’t hate you? But- but you told him about you. You broke his heart, you drove him away, you fucked up everything. What does he MEAN that he doesn’t hate you?!

“Also I’m sorry.” he adds, just to further confuse you. 

“What?” you ask again in a small voice. 

“I didn’t understand what you said to me, I still don’t think I do entirely but I don’t think you’re lying. It pretty obviously hurt to say everything you did to explain yourself, you didn’t fake that. I wanted some answer that made sense and yours didn’t so… I don’t know. But it was a pretty shit thing to do, making you tell me something painful that you didn’t want to only to say the shit I did. So for that I’m sorry.” Sollux says, it sounds like he practiced it. 

“I say much worse to myself.” you shrug half heartedly. 

“That doesn’t make it better, Karkat.” he argues. 

“I’m mad that you never told me. That you’ve felt like that forever and you never said anything, we were best friends and you didn’t trust me with that.” Sollux says. He sounds hurt but too bad for him because you’re burnt out on feeling bad. 

“Well I’m not sorry. I’d rather pretend that I’m normal for forever than let everyone know I’m not, so if you came here for an apology on that specifically you’re not getting it. Sorry to waste your time, I’m going back to my block now.” you mutter and walk off again. 

“I’ll just keep running the ship then.” he calls after you. 

“You don’t work here.” you shout back. 

“Unless you fire me I do.” Sollux shouts at your back. 

“If I did fire you would you even leave?” you ask, glancing over your shoulder at him. 

“This is a pirate ship, I am a pirate. I’m not big on doing what people tell me, so nah.” Sollux says and that is a grin on his face, actual amusement. It’s too weird, you’re leaving. 

You shamble back to your block and lock the doors. You’re not sure if Sollux still has automatic access to your block as the first mate, or as he puts it second in command, but there’s also nothing you could do to your door that would stop him getting in if he was determined to do so. You decide not to fuck with the doors and instead go back to moping. 

Goddamn Sollux, how dare he show back up here? How dare he take over your ship? Does he just want answers on why you’re like this or what you meant with your explanation? Did someone else make him come back? He did mention your friends but you’re pretty loath to go ask them if they did anything. With no other option you just lay there confused and angry for a while. You eventually remember to take the medication Equius gave you, but you’re not happy about it. 

The problem with your ship is that your block is right next to Sollux’s and you kept it empty the whole time he was gone. You got used to it being silent and now you can hear him living in there, the sound of him moving things about or him opening and shutting doors. When you stand there brushing your teeth you can faintly hear the shower going on the other side of the wall. It makes it very hard to focus on concentrated misery so you’re forced to eventually brave the rest of your ship again. 

Your crew is watching you and Sollux warily and you note that Tavros is back. He does spy type work for the rebellion, not the cool infiltration style but the careful sorting of stolen intel to work out the flow of things. He has stunning intuition, really. Sometimes he works from your ship and sometimes he’ll station himself somewhere else for a while, like the rest of your old friends he has a permanent block on your ship that you don’t let anyone else have.

“Tavros.” you say slowly, walking over to him with a wince. You’re determined to not keep using that cane thing but you’re keeping it in your sylladex just in case. 

“Hi Karkat, that looks painful. I can relate.” Tavros nods sympathetically. 

“I’m sure. Did you have anything to do with trapping me on that planet with Sollux?” you ask him suspiciously. 

“I’d heard people were thinking of doing it but ever since you and Sollux fell out people have always talked about wild ways to fix things, I didn’t think it was going to happen.” Tavros admits. 

Well, good. That’s one less person to punch in the face.

Being around Sollux is weird. 

You keep expecting something to happen, for him to turn around and shout ‘surprise!’ and then melt you with his eye lasers or something. You fucked him over so badly he can’t just suddenly be okay with that. It makes you jumpy and on edge, meanwhile Sollux is aggressively pretending like you’re not being twitchy and weird and is making perfectly sensible first mate decisions about running the ship while your thinksponge is effectively soup. 

Every so often you ask him if he’s satisfied with what you’ve told him and that you’re not sorry for keeping it from him and you’re not telling him more, then based on that information is he going now? He doesn’t seem satisfied but he’s also not prying more, he looks annoyed when you say you’re not sorry for keeping everything secret and then tells you that he’s not going. It’s infuriating. 

He seems to even begin to warm up to you again, smiling more around you and losing the tension you’d not noticed that he had in the first place. Your poor crew seem utterly thrown by this entire situation but you can’t bring yourself to actually force Sollux off of the ship, though you probably couldn’t do that anyway. So you’re stuck in this stalemate/hostage situation where you don’t understand the stakes or what he wants. 

You know that you clearly have some kind of cabin fever and paranoia induced psychosis when you’re desperately glad to see Vriska at your next port. She’s not so enthusiastic to see you. 

“Vriska, thank god, someone sane to talk to.” you say in relief and wrap your arms around her shoulders before sitting down next to her in the shady out of the way coffee place she’d picked to meet you at. 

“Hanging out with Sollux again is working that well, huh?” Vriska snorts. 

“You know about that?” you ask her suspiciously. 

“Eeeeeeeeveryone knows about that, Karkat. Besides the whole thing was Terezi’s idea. I take it that it’s going predictably terribly?” Vriska asks with a grin. 

“Were you involved in that?” you ask, your fist clenching without your conscious command. 

“Bluh, as if. Just locking you two up was never going to help. Besides, you and him are like…” Vriska trails off, waving her hands around for a moment like she’s trying to work out how to articulate her thoughts. At least she didn’t help, you don’t want to punch her because Vriska would definitely punch you back and her fist is metal.

“You know those infomercials where one person just fucks up to catastrophic proportions?” Vriska asks. 

“Yeah?” you say.

“Like oh no I was trying to carry too many things and now I’ve tripped and thrown cereal into the fireplace and fallen, now I’ve landed on my barkbeast and killed it and my hive is on fire. That kind of thing?” Vriska goes on.

“Yeah?” you repeat. 

“Watching you and Sollux trying to interact with each other, watching either of you pretend that you don’t have feelings for each other is like watching that. But for sweeps and sweeps. It’s fucking stupid and sometimes it’s embarrassing to know you.” Vriska sneers as she stirs her coffee with her spoon. Ah, there goes the feeling of being glad to see her. 

“Why do I see you again?” you ask flatly. 

“Because I have intel.” Vriska says and hands you a file.

You sigh and flick through it. It’s useful shit, an update on the ever shifting politics and who’s who in the empire so you know who you should avoid and what areas you should stay clear of, but also who might be worth reaching out to. 

“You look like you need a vacation from everything.” Vriska says thoughtfully. 

You consider the prospect of going back to your ship with Sollux there and grimace. 

“A chance to not be in the confusing and stressful situation I’m in now would be great. I don’t understand why Sollux is talking to me and- and he’s just acting like he works on the ship. I know I never fired him but he did leave and now he’s just back and I don’t… I don’t know!” you say in exasperation. 

“Definitely need a vacation.” Vriska nods and drinks her coffee. 

“I’ve never really had a vacation.” you tell her. Sure you’ve had days off here and there in places you happened to be safe at but not an actual thing where you go somewhere just to relax. 

“Delphi prime is supposed to be gorgeous. It’s this tropical little planet, all beaches and ocean, lush forests and that. But get this, the water’s so deoxygenated that nothing lives in it because it can’t breathe. So no seadwellers want to go there really, it’s really off the beaten path and there are these tropical forests that I’d love to explore. I’ve been trying to get Rezi to take some time and go there with me for ages but it’s never lined up right. Oh, oh, and the whole planet is owned and there’s staff everywhere for everything you could ever want. Spa shit, the drinks with the little umbrellas in, the works.” Vriska sighs wistfully. 

“Shit, that sounds awesome.” you agree. 

You know, actually, you’ve never had a vacation. You have a bunch of treasure saved up and apparently a first mate willing to run your ship without you despite what you want so why not? You could use a chance to recharge and get your head on right. 

“Actually, maybe I will go!” you declare, banging on the table. 

“That’s the spirit, now just let me know if it’s as good as people say so I can drag Terezi there.” Vriska grins, hah, she was just using you as her test but that’s fine. You’re sure it’ll be wonderful. You book your trip to Delphi Prime and send your ship that way. Nepeta and Sollux seemingly can think of things to do relatively nearby so you’re still able to communicate with them in case the place sucks and you need to leave, or in case they need you. 

You tell them to drop THAT fucking idea and go even further away, you don’t want to be disturbed. 

You get to your tropical cabana, find a shitload of fancy snacks waiting for you. You take pictures on the beach, wander to the forests and smell the lush flowers there. It’s nice, it’s really nice. Every so often there are deck chairs scattered about on the beach so you pick one at random and just take in the gorgeous scenery and feel a moment of peace descend on you. Maybe with a little time you can salvage something from this Sollux mess. Maybe you could invite him down here early on your last day and the two of you can have a quiet talk and come to some kind of agreement about what to do. Maybe things can get better. 

Out of nowhere a little alien pops up in a little suit and tie and asks if you want anything. 

“Agh! Oh, fuck sorry, I didn’t see you there.” you yelp, flailing upright. 

“Oh no, I’m terribly sorry sir. I didn’t mean to alarm you. We’re here should you need anything at all, I apologise deeply for disturbing you.” the little alien apologises and starts to back off. 

“No, I’m sorry, it’s not your fault at all.” you say gently and the alien pauses. You’ve never seen anyone like him. 

“Hey, uh, forgive me if I’m being rude but I’ve never seen your species before and I don’t even know your name. I’m Karkat.” you say, offering your hand. 

“Oh. Oh, I am… my name is Nix.” Nix says. 

“What’s your species called?” you ask curiously. 

“We’re- I don’t know. Before trolls arrived here we didn’t know there were other people, we don’t have any of the technology you do so we didn’t have a name for ourselves. The trolls who own this planet just call us ‘them’ but I don’t think that’s the same. You can call me or us whatever you want, you’re our guest.” Nix says, bowing their head. 

A terrible feeling fills your insides. 

“This is your home planet?” you ask and Nix nods. 

“And some trolls just came here and took it?” you ask, Nix nods again. 

“Are you at least,” you ask in desperate hope, “in some kind of business agreement with them? Like you’re leasing the place out to them in exchange for money or technology? Access to the intergalactic market?” 

“We all work for them, we have to. This is their planet now and we’re theirs.” Nix answers and taps on a rusty looking metal collar around their neck that you hadn’t seen because of how meekly ducked Nix was keeping their head. 

You rest your head in your hands and despair for a moment. You just wanted a vacation. 

“I think I want you to take me to your community, I have some questions I want to ask because this isn’t okay.” you tell Nix. 

Your holiday was supposed to be ten days long, no contact or communication with the outside universe, restful even. 

Your crew find you on day ten, the centre of the planet that’s most built up is mostly on fire now. Your army of small aliens has proven adept at overthrowing the system and Nix has a real aptitude for weapons that you wouldn’t have predicted. 

“What happened?!” Nepeta gasps in horror as you spark two wires together behind the barricade of an overturned margarita stand. Finally the current in your improvised explosive device goes through and the doors to the owners mansion blow clean off. 

“We need to storm the mansion, force the owners to surrender and negotiate with the native species. I think they’re going by ‘Us’ now instead of ‘Them’ but that’s new. Come on.” you say in a rush and scramble to your feet, snatching your weapons up and running. 

“You were supposed to be on vacation!” Sollux shouts after you as he sprints to keep up. 

“They enslaved the local population, what was I supposed to do?!” you demand and keep running. 

“What happened to your face?” Nepeta shouts and decks a passing troll who tries to stop you going through the gates. 

“The Us had just elected their leader a few days ago and the assholes running this place tried to have them killed, I managed to stop it but the grenade had shrapnel. It got me near the eye so I bandaged it.” you shout back. You tried to disinfect it but you didn’t have a lot of supplies and you had a mission here. 

It takes two days after that to capture and force surrender out of the trolls who took over this innocent planet as well as negotiating a settlement with them that you call Terezi to oversee via video to ensure it is legally binding and as a private business agreement will be enforceable to the full extent of the law. The Us make sure to tell you that you can come back any time, that they are friends of the rebellion and will aid you in any way they can. You’re just pleased that they’re free. 

“I need a vacation from my vacation.” you mumble to yourself as you head back to your block on your ship. 

A hand wraps around your arm and you look up to see Sollux. 

“You need that looked at.” he tells you, pointing to your face with your makeshift bandage over it.

“I’d rather sleep.” you tell him. 

“Cool, I wasn’t asking.” Sollux says and pulls you off towards the medical section. Despite your considerable combat prowess you just can’t fight magical mind powers, so even when you wrench your arm from his hand you still end up floating down the hall in a sulk. 

“Remind me what happened again.” Sollux says as he drops you on the stretcher and shuts the door. 

“Are you even qualified for this? I’m leaving.” you say. No you’re not, red and blue light are holding your good leg down and unless you’re going to chew it off to leave you can’t go.

“I helped Equius out when he needed extra hands, plus it was interesting. I’m qualified enough to take a look at least.” Sollux tells you and snaps a pair of gloves on.

“There was a grenade, shrapnel, etc. It was a shit vacation.” you sigh. Sollux leans in close to you and starts to untie the makeshift bandage around your face. It was a shirt, not yours but someone’s. It has little palm trees on it. 

“More molotov cocktails than the kind with little umbrellas, huh?” he says and unwinds it.

“I didn’t even see any tiny umbrellas.” you agree out of sheer habit, not any recent habit mind you. This is more the sweeps that you had with him as his friend where you’d talk about anything without hardly thinking, always bouncing off one another. Sollux has this amused little tilt to the corner of his mouth but when your makeshift bandage comes off the smile falls off of his face. 

“Eugh, that feels gross.” you grimace. 

“It looks really bad, I thought you said you looked after this before you bandaged it.” Sollux says seriously. 

“I did, sort of. Look, my eye was fine, it was just the face that got messed up. I sterilised it as best as I could and there were kids there who were really hurt, they needed the real supplies.” you mumble guiltily. 

“So what did you DO?” he demands. 

“Pulled the shrapnel out, poured half a bottle of vodka on my face, swore a lot, used half a shirt to bandage my face and the other half to put in the rest of the vodka to throw at some asshole after I set it on fire.” you mumble, it sounds dumb even to you. 

“I… okay, I need to clean you up and then you need to open your eye so I can see it.” Sollux hisses and goes off to get supplies. 

A certain amount of stinging saline and gentle cleaning fixes things enough that you can open your eye just fine. Regrettably however the amount that you can see out of that eye is ‘not at all’. Sollux shoves some medication at you, tosses you in your coon and about faces your ship to speed to Equius’ home and none of your mutinous crew listen to you over Sollux when you insist that you’re probably fine. It’ll probably fix itself, right? 

“It’s not going to fix itself, Karkat. What kind of foolish idea was that?” Equius says disapprovingly as Sollux immediately rats you out the moment he gets you in the room. 

“But I could see, my eye was fine.” you insist. 

“Eyes have nerves that transmit information to the thinksponge you supposedly have. Getting fuck knows what shot into them and then not getting medical treatment is I believe the medical community says, really fucking stupid. Equius?” Sollux says, looking at Equius for confirmation. 

“Language, Sollux. But, yes he is right. You’ll need a new eye.” Equius nods. 

“A NEW ONE?!” you shriek. 

You don’t want a new eye, you want this one to work again! You want to go out of this life with the full set of body parts that you’re supposed to have!

“It is fine, Karkat. I do a lot of eyes, they’re my specialty. Vriska has no complaints. You will also be asleep for this procedure so it’s very easy.” Equius says casually.

“Noooo…” you whine. 

“I also want to see how you’ve been looking after your leg.” Equius adds. 

“NOOOOOOOO.” you groan and lay down on the stretcher in protest. It’s not much of a protest. 

Equius at least has the mercy to shoo Sollux out of the room to check you up thoroughly and then kicks you out saying that he has to construct your eye with its ‘unusual colour’. You grumpily hobble upstairs and stow yourself away in the block that you were in before, at least this time there’s internet. 

You have a good ten minutes of sulking before you spot Sollux walking up and leaning against the doorframe.

“What?” you ask suspiciously, looking at him. 

“Eq said you’ve managed to not be terrible at looking after your leg.” Sollux says. 

“I’m trying to get it so it works right again and Equius doesn’t try to remove more of me, bad enough that he’s getting my eye.” you grumble and try to read your husktop instead of paying attention to Sollux. 

Naturally this is impossible, all of your attention is on Sollux, you’re just not looking right at him. 

“I was still mad at you, you know.” he tells you and you wince. 

“I’m sorry.” you apologise. 

“I thought you weren’t sorry for refusing to tell me about you not being able to do quadrants.” Sollux says and walks a little closer. 

Ah, that. 

You sink a little lower in your seat only to have your husktop float off. 

“Hey!” you protest but Sollux doesn’t care and just makes your tech get out of the way with an idle gesture of his hand. 

“It’s ok, besides I worked something out.” Sollux says calmly and sits of the arm of the chair your sat in. 

“What?” you ask him suspiciously, still weirded out by having so much of your vision gone when there’s nothing in the way of your eye. 

“I spent a long time hating you for what you did but you’ve made it pretty hard to forget why I liked and pitied you in the first place.” Sollux says softly as he looks down at you. 

“What?” you repeat, your voice tighter. What’s he talking about. 

“Most people if they’d gone on your vacation would have just had a nice time, or if the whole situation had bothered them they’d have left, or stayed but left a bad review or said something on chittr. But Karkat Vantas, pirate leader, star of the rebellion, he can’t do that. He’s got to open his big mouth and stick his foot in that entire mess, he’s got to lead everyone to victory. Can’t look after himself, no, he’s got to make everyone else happy first.” Sollux says, his voice quiet and almost secret as he talks. He leans in a little as he talks, looking at you carefully and you’re not sure you want him examining you that close. It feels like he can see through you and you don’t like what’s inside you, you certainly don’t want him seeing it more than he already has. 

“I guess I forgot that the kind of guy who does that is also the kind of guy who pretends that he’s something different because he thinks people won’t like the truth, huh?” Sollux adds quietly. 

You cringe under his gaze but he’s got you cornered. Cautiously you move, just to see if he’ll let you but he swings the leg furthest away from you up so his foot rests on the other arm of the chair and blocking your path out. 

“In my defense, when I did tell you-” you start. 

“I know. I was shit about it, I did say I was sorry about that.” Sollux admits. 

“It’s not like you tried to kill me, or told all of our friends about me, or told me you were disgusted with me. Said that I’m broken, repulsive-” 

“Stop that.” Sollux interrupts you sharply. 

You shut your mouth but you don’t look at him. 

“I don’t think any of that and none of our friends would either. They might not get it entirely, I don’t get it entirely I don’t think but…” Sollux sighs and runs his hand through his hair. It’s starting to get a little long and wild, you know he prefers it shorter so he can control it but you always kind of liked him like this. 

“I wish you’d told me before.” Sollux finally says. 

“I didn’t want to tell anyone ever. I just messed that up.” you mutter. 

Sollux turns a little more so he’s facing you head on which is actually better for your vision right now. What’s less great is the way it presses the leg that’s not caging you in against yours. It’s not your bad leg or anything, it doesn’t hurt, it just makes you think things that you shouldn’t. 

“Was your plan just really to never say anything and never make any kind of move? So we’d both spend the rest of our lives drowning in feelings for each other without doing anything? Really?” Sollux asks you skeptically. 

“Well, no. I wouldn’t have to. Eventually you’d find some other normal troll who you felt red for and you’d be with them and I’d.” you pause as your chest contracts in a bitter ache at the thought of Sollux happily flush with someone else, it hurts more than the half a bottle of vodka to the face did. 

“Then you’d be happy and that’d be better.” you say thickly. 

“You’re a moron.” Sollux groans. 

He moves so his other leg is on the chair with you so he’s not quite in your lap but holding himself above it, you guess that he doesn’t want to hurt your leg. Instead it means he’s got his hands on the back of the chair on either side of your head and you have this feeling that he intends to kiss you, not that you know why he’d want to do that. 

“What’re you doing?” you ask quickly, putting your hands on his chest. 

“Well, I wanted to kiss you because I always want that and you’re a moron and it seemed like it’d stop you saying dumb shit at least for a little bit.” Sollux says, his voice low in a way that makes you get butterflies in your digestion sac. 

“But I can’t pity you like you used to pity me.” you tell him. 

“I know.” Sollux nods. 

“I explained it, there was a diagram and everything.” you say in a voice that’s almost a squeak. He makes a noise that sounds like he’s listening but he still leans in a little closer. 

“But-” you try.

“If you don’t want me to kiss you then say so. I don’t want to do anything you don’t want me to do.” Sollux says and leans back a little to look at you carefully. 

You don’t know what to say to that. What you want has always been a problem. Who knows what expression is on your face, probably something embarrassing and awful that shows off all of the things you so desperately want and can’t have. 

“Do you want me to kiss you?” he asks you, slow and clear. 

“Only all of the time.” tumbles from your mouth without you meaning to. 

“WAIT- shit, I didn’t mean to say that. I’m sorry. I just-” you scramble for an excuse that won’t make him hate you but Sollux just grins like he’s won. 

You don’t get much chance to argue when he kisses you and, honestly, you truly don’t want to. No matter how much you know you’re going to revile yourself later you kiss him back because you were telling the truth. You want him, all the time, in every possible way. His tongue slides against yours, the little fork in it so completely him, you almost don’t remember how to breathe. When he finally stops and rests his forehead against yours you’re breathless. 

“I think… I think we should probably not just keep doing that. Maybe we could be smarter the… what, the third time around?” Sollux suggests. 

“I’m sorry.” you say quickly. 

“Don’t be. It’s… how about we start here?” Sollux says, breathing a little shakily himself. 

“Start where?” you ask and he leans back so you can see him better. His cheeks are flushed dark and the way he’s looking at you makes you weak. 

“We could be friends for a start.” Sollux suggests. 

“You said we weren’t friends anymore.” you point out. 

“And I’m changing my mind and you don’t get to tell me I shouldn’t want to be friends with you anymore.” he says, preempting you correctly. 

It leaves you with nothing to say. 

“Do you want to still be friends?” Sollux asks you. 

“I still have feelings for you. Awful, wrong and romantic feelings for you.” you tell him upfront. 

“No shit, the way you kissed me back told me that. And I don’t think it’s awful, for what it’s worth.” Sollux says, rolling his eyes. 

“I’m still red as hell for you too if that needed pointing out. So now we’re both clear. I’m red for you, I admire you and I want to be your friend. You’re… whatever you call your thing for me. Do you want to be friends?” Sollux asks. 

What was it Vriska said about you? That when it comes to Sollux you’re like one of those stupid adverts where the guy constantly screws the whole thing up at every turn into a huge mess that’s almost comedic. Maybe you could just unfuck your past mistakes a little. Besides, when you were kids isn’t this how you became friends? By just asking? He wants to be your friend, do you want to be his, check yes or no here. He knows about you, he knows about your feelings for him, he knows that you still have them and he still wants to be friends. 

“Yes.” you say. 

Sollux grins and hops off of the chair. 

“Good. I had better help Equius make your new eye perfect. I already unlocked the network for you, there’s lots of stuff for you to watch. Don’t worry about poking around and breaking things, I already Karkat-proofed it.” he says brightly. 

“Hey!” you protest but he’s already left. 

It takes two days for your eye to be ready and Equius to get prepared for replacing it, apparently Sollux is a perfectionist about things sometimes. You already knew that but all the same you’d rather not have to go around half blind for longer than you need to. 

The whole while your mind is doing this little loop. It goes like this. 

1) Karkat Vantas is a disgusting mutant with awful feelings that everyone should be disgusted and repulsed by if they knew about them.

2) Sollux Captor knows about the disgusting parts of Karkat Vantas.

3) Sollux Captor wants to be friends again and also KISSED Karkat Vantas, defective thinksponge owner.

4) Wait, no, that can’t be right. See point 1. 

And so on and so in a loop. Yet despite all of your solid reasoning Sollux is acting like your friend again, or near enough. There’s still a certain nervousness between the two of you, a trepidation coming from both sides but it is something approaching how things were. 

You can’t understand it but it’s happening so you just live with it in quiet bewilderment. It’s like you’ve won some lottery but it’s definitely a mistake and you’re waiting for someone to come snatch every scrap of good feeling out of you and take it back. 

Equius replaces your eye and Sollux shows you that you can change its colour, useful if you’re ever going undercover and don’t want to be noticed. You can see great, better than before even. Equius comes with you to the ship this time, he says he doesn’t trust you to look after the parts he’s put in you until he sees proof. Needless to say Nepeta is delighted to have him back. 

Things with Sollux are… different. There’s a while, a good few months, where you’re both going around wary of each other. He may be forcing normal and being over familiar, you partly suspect that this is to fuck with you and given that you’re talking about Sollux who is a shitlord you may not be wrong. The point is that no matter how much he’s acting like he’s the one getting you to ease back into this you still notice that in moments where either of you is more real or open than you have been for a while he’s tense too. Just like you he’s working out how to be friends again. 

In your guiltiest and most private moments you relive that kiss in Equius’ hive, in your guiltier still moments you relive that night in the hotel. You remember his body against yours and how amazing it felt that he wanted you back. You always feel shitty about it right after and though the red on your hand doesn’t stain you always worry that somehow Sollux will KNOW when he sees you. 

He doesn’t, or if he does he doesn’t say anything. 

You figure the kiss was a mistake. Well, not a mistake as such. It was needed for him to properly convey how he felt and for you to do the same, it was an act of honesty. That doesn’t mean that it’s going to happen again. It won’t happen again. 

You ignore how that hurts. 

“Hello Captain.” Sollux says, walking into the gym where you happen to be working out. It bothers you because he’s not greeting you befitting of your station. He says ‘Hello Captain’ like it’s the start of some themed porno. Oh well hello, Captain, fancy seeing you here when it’s just us on this ship. I have contracted a terrible pirate virus and the only cure is your body. That’s how he says it. 

The thing is that you’re not alone, you have two crewmen who were sparring and are now loudly talking about how actually that’s probably a good enough workout for now ok bye. You wish you knew if Sollux was just fucking with them or with you. Knowing him probably both. 

“What do you want, FIRST mate?” you ask with a grunt. He hates being called the first mate, he much prefers being the second in command, for obvious reasons.

Sollux huffs indignantly and walks around to the other side of the pull-up bar from you so he can glare at you. 

“I was coming to tell you that we’ve docked with the station. I’ve spoken to Kanaya’s ship, she’s not due to get there until this evening.” Sollux says. 

“Right… on schedule then?” you say between repetitions. Look, you’ve never claimed to be ripped but in your line of work, no in your life, it pays to be able to do what you have to do. No one wants to flunk out of scaling a cliff when your life is on the line, you don’t want to lose in a fight to some highblood because they’re naturally stronger than lowbloods are. Besides you sublimated a lot of your young feelings into combat training and physical workouts because at least that you could improve on with dedication, not like your emotional problems. 

“Hm?” Sollux says, sounding distracted. He’s just looking at you. 

You roll your eyes and walk off, grabbing a sword from the rack. It’s not your primary specibus but being a pirate it’s good to be handy with as many forms of combat as you can and plenty of people use bladekind which means lots of them around for you to steal and use in a pinch. You nudge one of Equius’ bots into life and begin sparring with it, you can beat them on every difficulty that he installed but it’s worth keeping you on your toes, especially with your modified leg and eye. New muscles and body parts need muscle memory too. 

“So I had a question.” Sollux says, standing with his hands held behind his back as he watches you fight. 

“Yeah?” you ask, whirling out of the way of the bot’s blade and kicking it away so it has to come at you again. 

“How does your not-quadrant thing work?” he asks. 

You falter and only JUST deflect the bot’s sword but as it passes by you, scraping on your own blade, you see a shimmer of red/blue on it with your artificial eye. You wouldn’t have got stabbed if you’d failed to block it. 

“OFF.” you snap at the bot. 

“What the hell?” you demand. 

“It was just a question.” Sollux says innocent in a way that he absolutely isn’t. He wanders casually over to the frozen bot and takes its sword. 

“My ass it’s just a question.” you say sharply. 

“Well what do you think it is if it’s not a question? Is it a pineapple, KK? Please tell me.” Sollux snarks at you and you start to grind your teeth and twist the point of your sword into the floor. 

Sollux twirls the sword around in his hand casually. 

“Don’t flail that thing around when you don’t know how to use it.” you warn him. It’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye and you’re already one down so you’ll pass on that thanks. 

“It’s not exactly hard, you put the pointy end in the other guy. Your sickles I’ll agree are hard to use but a sword is just a long sharp- HEY!” Sollux doesn’t seem pleased that you’ve just disarmed him. 

“So easy.” you snort. 

“I wasn’t ready, you couldn’t have done that if I was ready.” Sollux insists. You shake your head and walk off but you turn when you hear the sword move.

Sollux stands there with it in his hand. 

“You didn’t answer my question.” Sollux says. 

The question about how your romantic feelings work? Yeah, gee why might that be?

“Why do you even want to know?” you ask him in return, pointing your blade at him. Sollux looks at your blade and then back at you. 

“Loser answers the winner’s question?” he suggests, no, he asks. He asks it in a challenging, beguiling way that makes you hate him a little more.

“Excuse you, I’ve been training for sweeps.” you say. 

“I know, it’s not fair but what else can I do? Blindfold myself?” Sollux grins. 

He- oh that’s it. 

“Alright, fine, I’ll kick your ass.” you growl and Sollux beams like he’s won already. 

A younger and dumber Karkat might have lunged right for him but that’s the dumb shit the level one bots pull on people. No, you pace carefully, closing the distance with your blade raised and your arm loose and relaxed. Sollux backs up a touch, his eyes skittering over you. 

“Realising what you just got yourself into?” you ask lightly. 

“Realising that it’s not fair us doing this when you’re not wearing a shirt.” Sollux says in reply and you know just what he’s implying. 

He swings for you but you bat the blade away harmlessly and go to jab at him. The cheat zips back out of the way by flying. You roll your sword around in your hand and start to stalk closer again. 

“You never asked me, you know.” he says, lifting the blade defensively but the angle is wrong and sloppy. 

“Asked what?” you say and then you wait for him to start talking before you attack. 

“You- AH!” Sollux psionically shoves you backwards and then tries to attack in return but he telegraphs everything so clearly that it’s easy to just keep defending. 

“You ah?” you repeat with a grin, normally you wouldn’t sass someone while fighting. It looks cool but that’s how you get stabbed. The number of highbloods you’ve taken down in a fight because they’re trying to get off a witty one liner that sounds sharp instead of worrying about the sharp weapon in your hand is frankly embarrassing to your species. But the gap in skill between you and Sollux is so wide here that you’re fine. 

Sollux brings his blade down against yours, trying to brute force it out of your hand by leveraging his size but basically everyone is taller than you so you’re used to this and it won’t work. 

“You… you told me that you can’t do quadrants but you didn’t ask me what I thought… thought about IT.” Sollux says through gritted teeth and shoves you away, unable to break your strength. 

“Didn’t need to, you said we were friends.” you point out and then slash at him again. He psionically stops your blade. 

“Cheat.” you accuse.

“I didn’t say I wouldn’t use my psionics, I’m not an idiot.” Sollux scoffs and lets go of his blade, it floats in the air. 

“That’s definitely cheating.” you say. 

Sollux’s sword swipes and jabs and slashes for you in strange ways because it’s not being held by a hand and you’re not working with someone else’s grip. Now you actually have to focus to defend yourself. Suddenly your leg can’t move, it’s not your augmented leg freezing up but rather Sollux’s psionics freezing you in place. You curse and desperately defend yourself but one attack too many forces you to fall backwards on your ass. The sword tumbles harmlessly to the floor off to the side. 

“I want to know how it works.” Sollux says, kneeling down and leaning over you to look at you upside down. 

“You cheated.” you accuse him. He shrugs like it’s no big deal. 

“Feeling pretty pitch right now, maybe?” Sollux guesses and ice fills your veins. Was he baiting you into that? Trying to see just how much you’d react in that quadrant? 

You jerk upright with your back to him and wrap your arms around your legs. 

“KK, I can’t understand this if you don’t talk to me about it.” Sollux tells you and you hate how gentle he sounds, it stings like an open wound. 

“Why do you want to know?” you ask. You can hear how thick your voice sounds but you won’t look at him, you can’t.

“I don’t know, Karkat, maybe it’s a jerk thing to do to someone to say that you’re interested in someone if you can’t do quadrants like they do.” Sollux says through gritted teeth. 

“I’m SORRY!” you wail. You cover your face with your hands but it won’t hide your shame about your past but Sollux keeps talking, ignoring you. 

“And maybe I want to know more about how you work so I know what I’m dealing with here so I don’t do the same thing to you that you did to me by agreeing to something I can’t do.” he says loudly. 

He… what?

You turn around warily but Sollux is just watching you.

“What?” you say in a small voice. 

“You never asked me if I wanted you still after you told me that you don’t work the same way as me. Even after we kissed again you didn’t and that was fine, we were being friends again but you’re kind of a dumbass Karkat. So instead of trying to work shit out myself I’m just going to ask you to tell me how it works because I still want you but I don’t want to…” he seems to search for the word. 

“To make my mistake?” you ask and he nods although you don’t think that he wanted to put it that way. 

“Was the swordfighting a test? Did you just bait me into that for some experiment?” you ask him. 

“Nah, you’re still just really easy to piss off and it’s as fun as it’s always been to do. But I was thinking about it then, having pitch feelings for you I mean.” Sollux says thoughtfully, tilting his head to the side a little to look at you with a small smile that you can only classify as devious. 

“You’re playing at it, that’s not the same.” you tell him and get up. 

“That’s unfair. Besides when we were kids my crush for you waxed pitch sometimes, it’s not unthinkable. You are deeply frustrating and annoying, you know.” he tells you. 

You shake your head and go to the rack to return your training sword, they’re blunt for the safety and wellbeing of your crew. 

“You’re acting like it’s vacillation again, it’s not.” you grumble and put your sword back. You look around for his to return that too. 

“So tell me what it is like. You said it’s all things but you can’t loathe the idea of ever seeing me hurt because you feel something pale for me and want to attack me with a sword at the same time.” Sollux argues. 

“Don’t tell me what I can’t do.” you snap, picking his abandoned sword up. 

“I can think you’re a smug fucker, I can want to take you down a peg. I can also at the same time feel sick about how vulnerable you’d be without your psionics, I can feel admiration at how strong they make you and want to beat you to show you not to underestimate people so you never get hurt like this. I can do all that at once, I do all of that all the time about everything!” you say angrily and slam his sword back in the rack. 

You turn to glare at Sollux for presuming but he just looks thoughtful. 

“What?!” you snap. 

“Calm your rumblespheres, I’m thinking.” he says. 

“I thought it was an unfamiliar expression.” you retort and he casually flips you off in response. 

“I think I could feel most of that. All of it individually but a fair few chunks of that simultaneously. I could consciously flip between ‘gonna kick your ass’ and ‘I worry for how weak you are in this one area’, I couldn’t do both at once.” Sollux says slowly. 

“Yes, great, I know I’m a freak. Thanks for the reminder.” you hiss. 

“BUT.” he says loudly over you, “I could do both. I can feel both, for you specifically. I’m not the same as you but that doesn’t mean I can’t work with it, that doesn’t mean I’d hate you feeling all that for me.” 

“What are you talking about?” you ask. It’s a stupid question, it’s obvious what he’s saying. He’s saying that he means he knows about your abnormalities and is saying that he still wants this anyway. You’re not stupid, that’s the thing he’s saying. 

Yet it can’t be true. You’re not sure how that’s possible when Sollux is very plainly saying this but your thinksponge is just going ‘nope not real’ about it. 

Sollux sighs in a long suffering way and gets up. 

“I want to try being more than friends, Karkat. If you want to stop being weird about it and talk then do that. And… if you change your mind about me or want me to back off then just say.” he says simply. 

Sollux looks down at you and you’re very aware that you’re not wearing a shirt. He flashes you a pleased little smile and then leaves. 

Well that happened. 

But how can he…

Why would…

You don’t understand.

You’re in such a daze afterwards that it doesn’t even occur to you to ask Kanaya if she had a hand in bringing you two together again, though you’re pretty sure she did, and you forget to punch Terezi when you see her too. You’re just lost. It’s all you can do to stop yourself going up to Sollux over and over and asking him ‘really?’ over and over. 

You’re distracted, it’s hard not to be. Sollux acts every bit as close to you as he used to including pirating shit that you want to watch, but sometimes he sticks around to watch it with you. That’s not that unusual for how you used to be but you’re hyper conscious of how he is around you. You can tell when he’s watching you, thinking about things between you. You’ll react to something he’s said in a certain way and it’s as if you can see all the gears whirring in his head as he starts to piece together how you work. It feels scrutinising and vulnerable and you’re not fully comfortable with it. 

“Why do you do that sometimes?” Sollux asks one day, his feet are against your leg and he’s leaning his back on the arm of your loungeplank. You’re meant to be watching your show but you’ve just been staring blankly at it and sweating bullets since…

Well since Sollux said something that you’re reasonably sure was flirting. 

“What?” you ask croakily. 

“You’re fine and then I get anything close to suggestive and you sit there like you’re waiting for me to snap your neck.” Sollux sighs. 

“Because,” you hesitate, “because there’s a catch somewhere and I don’t know what it is.” 

“I’m not trying to trick you.” Sollux points out patiently, like you’re stupid for thinking it. 

“I mean- not you. I don’t think you’re playing me. The universe might be. The last time I ruined our friendship for sweeps. I don’t understand why you’d even want this anyway, want… me. I’m complicated and probably unworkable, definitely unworkable. You could have anyone you wanted. I know you have a thing for doing things on hard mode and picking me is that for sure but-” you cut yourself off with a frustrated noise. 

“Several things,” Sollux starts and you groan, “one, the last time we kissed nothing terrible happened. I could do it again to prove it if you want.”

You forget how to breathe for a moment there and Sollux flashes his fangs at you with that smile but he keeps talking. 

“Two, I don’t know where you get the idea that I could get anyone I wanted. You’re the famous pirate captain, notorious rebel leader, freer of hundreds of thousands of people. That and I feel like you should tell me when you’re going to work out so I can watch. YOU could get anyone you wanted, but I’m cool if it’s just me. More than cool.” he says with a smile that is almost a little territorial and the thought of that sends a thrill through you that you’re not sure you care to examine. 

He gets up on his knees and leans over to you, you just stare up at him. 

“There’s no cosmic force coming to punish you for wanting something and I’m not going to kick you for it either.” he says. 

“I know that. I mean- I don’t think some deity is coming to personally smite me and if they showed up I have a laundry list of grievances and a willingness to fight.” you hiss, Sollux laughs at that. 

“And if you wanted to hurt me back out of revenge you could have done it way before now and I don’t think you’re like that. You staying away was what you’d do, maybe blowing up my machines, but cutting me out is more you. Long winded elaborate revenge plots that require you kissing me and making up feelings, no. Even if you were trying to get revenge this wouldn’t be how.” you say confidently. 

Sollux looks like he has opinions on that but he’s holding them for now. 

“I just can’t shake the feeling that I’m wrong. I mean, I know I’m wrong. I’m mutated and-” you start but now he does talk. 

“Yeah I don’t get that. People have got in your face about you being a mutant before, about your blood being wrong and I’ve seen you rip the shit out of them and then kick their asses. You don’t give a fuck about your blood anymore, so why this?” Sollux asks. 

“My blood is just a colour.” you say like that hadn’t taken you sweeps and sweeps to shed the insecurities and hate for that. 

“Your feelings are just feelings.” Sollux counters. 

“My blood is ‘wrong’ because the Empress says it is. My feelings are actually incompatible with other people.” you counter-counter. 

“I don’t think they’re incompatible with me, remember me propositioning you?” Sollux points out. 

“Yes, but…” uh. But… well…

“Yeah?” Sollux prompts you. 

“You say that I’m not broken or wrong or anything and that you’re willing to try something with me but what if it really doesn’t work and then we both know for sure that I actually am incompatible?” you ask. 

“What if we are compatible and we spend our entire lives wishing for this and not having it?” Sollux counter proposes. The thought hits you like a suckerpunch to the gut. He leans back from you and sits in your lap, all long legs and sudden unease. He looks away, the glow of his eyes dimming as he narrows them slightly. 

“I’m not trying to force your hand here, if you really don’t want to be with me then I don’t want to just keep bothering you about it until you give in. I just don’t want to miss the chance for… I don’t know.” Sollux sighs. 

“No, that’s not it. Me wanting you isn’t the problem, I told you that before.” you insist and catch your hand in his shirt. That makes him look at you again. 

“Do you want me to back off?” he asks. It’s plain and simple, binary answer. 

Do you want him to back off because you’re scared to lose him as a friend now that you’ve just got him back? Do you want him to back off because the idea of what actually not being able to make it work would say about you makes you feel terrified?

Or do you not want him to back off? Do you want him to keep showing how interested he is by doing this and actually get through your defenses? You want him, obviously you do, but even just admitting to him that you want him to keep going is terrifying. 

But isn’t he scared too? You ripped his bloodpusher out before, you’ve rejected him twice when he’s put himself out there and yet here he is again. So yeah, you’re scared but maybe that shouldn’t matter. Maybe you should just do what you want to do. 

“I’m terrified of this.” you admit and Sollux looks hurt. Not for himself but for you, it’s a look of overwhelming pity. 

“But… but don’t back off. Please?” you say softly. 

Sollux’s expression brightens and he lays cautious hands on your chest. You’re suddenly very conscious of how he’s sat in your lap. 

“If you want to do this we don’t have to rush anything and I still need to figure out how we can work around quadrants not being a thing, that’ll take time on it’s own. We can figure it out together.” Sollux offers and it’s so sweet that you just can’t help but nod along with him and fuck he looks so happy when you do. 

He’s gone so far for you, though you’ve no idea why. You want this, he wants this so… 

So…

With him still in your lap you lean in towards him, you’re close enough to feel his breath hitch. You carefully, like it might shatter you both, kiss him. Considering all that the two of you have done with each other before this kiss is pretty chaste. 

It’s a good kiss for all that it advances like a careful seige or a game of chess. You launched the opening move by starting the kiss, his response beyond simply kissing you back is to lean his body against you more and to cling to your shirt. The next move falls to you, a tactical advance of biting his lip but you were unprepared for how much his vocal appreciation of that would weaken you. Sollux skips your next move, cutting you off with a devastating attack of sliding his hand around the back of your neck so he can hold you close. It’s so red, so demanding of trust from you. You want to give it to him but the worry that you don’t get nice things becomes too strong to ignore and you have to pull back, Sollux wins this one. 

“Sorry.” you murmur quietly. 

“No, don’t. It’s- thanks.” Sollux says in a jumble of mismatched words. 

You stare at him for a second and then laugh loudly, right in his face which might be a little mean but you can’t help it. 

“THANKS? Someone kisses you and you say thanks?” you snicker. 

“Maybe I just have manners. Anyway, how do you know that’s not how it’s supposed to go? It’s not like you’ve kissed anyone else, is it?” Sollux asks pointedly but there’s a waver of doubt on his face that you know means he hopes that your answer is no. 

“You have a point there, you would know better than me. You are my literal only experience here. I guess all those thousands of movies and books I consumed on romance when I was desperately trying to fit in just missed that part.” you say innocently. 

“Was that really why you read that stuff?” Sollux asks you quietly. 

“And why I stopped reading it, I couldn’t stand the reminder of not being that way. Did you think I was reading a book about solar panels when I was at Equius because I was deeply interested in it or something? It was that or Nepeta’s romance books.” you snort. When will your solar panel knowledge come in handy? Probably never. 

Sollux’s hands grip your shirt tightly and he takes in a deep breath, staring at you the whole time without blinking. 

“I have to kiss you now because that is the most pitiable thing I’ve ever heard, holy shit Karkat.” Sollux says. 

He does. Kiss you, that is. It’s desperate and awesome and not the last time he does it either. It’s enough of a yes to this whole thing between you that it’s sort of unspoken that things can progress, even if they progress slowly. You figure that staying in the red is safest, that’s what he wants and it’s certainly a thing that you want.

It’s just not the only thing. 

You have other stressors in your life beyond your thing with Sollux. Your thing with Sollux is secret in that you haven’t told anyone and as far as you know neither has he, but from the way that your crew watch you both and the looks you see them pass each other you doubt that it’s secret at all. Or at least that SOMETHING is going on between you and Sollux isn’t secret, you’re sure that speculation is rife. You refuse to dignify such speculation with an answer. Like you said, you have other problems. 

Problems like dead rebels. Yeah, how about THAT for a mood killer, huh? It’s hard to think about your romantic entanglements when you’re dealing with a job gone wrong for your fellow rebels. At least that’s what you can assume from where you stand on the bridge, looking over their blown out ship. 

“Imperial ship approximately four hours away, we can catch them in three if we floor it.” Nepeta advises you. 

“That’s the Corinthien, they were running missions for Kanaya, right? They must have had intel on them, Sollux can you tell from here if that information’s been accessed?” you ask, looking over at him. He’s already working, he must have started before you asked. 

“It’s completely fried, I could maybe tell you from within there but not out here. Their ship’s blown open, there’s no pressure in there so all their biotech is going to be dead, I’d be dealing with the manual stuff.” he answers you. 

“Take a team, ten people. Suit up, get over there. I want you to find what you can from their system and the rest of you searching the ship to see what happened and recover the dead. It might have just been a lucky shot with no data stolen but if they know something we need to know. We’ll search around for anyone who got thrown out or any tech that got ejected. You have twenty minutes.” you order him. 

“Captain.” Sollux nods and stands up. 

He quickly and efficiently picks a team, including Nepeta, and they rush over. Meanwhile you contact Kanaya and Terezi both, warn them that shit may be compromised. Kanaya has to call in back up to reroute the rescue operations for mutant or otherwise abnormal grubs that she was running. Who knows how big an impact this will have on Kanaya’s mission to alter the balance of the hemospectrum will be what with her vital co-conspirators having to flee. It’s possible that no one knows but it’s just too big of a risk. You can get her in touch with people who make fake identities and resettle those jades in new colonies and start again, you can’t so easily build up a network again. Better a false alarm than to lose everything. 

Your crew pick up a few unfortunate trolls launched into space and by the time they’re done with that Sollux’s time is up. Nepeta contacts you first. 

“Karkat, we have a problem. I found the captain of the Corinthien, or most of him. He’s been decapitated, there’s footprints in blood leaving the ship. This wasn’t an accident, they were boarded.” Nepeta tells you gravely. 

“Shit.” you hiss. Roughcub was the Captain of the Corinthien, he was a good man. You’ve been at so many meetings with him, had dinner and laughed with him. You weren’t exactly friends but it sucks to hear that he’s dead, you know a bunch of his crew too. Most of them by name and pretty much all of them by sight. They didn’t deserve this. 

“It gets worse, someone broke my encryption and erased everything.” Sollux says over the speaker. 

“What? You said that was unhackable.” you gasp. If they know EVERYTHING… this is bad. This is SO BAD. 

“Yes and no, someone can brute force their way in but you have to know a whole bunch of shit that you can’t just guess. Even doing that will automatically encrypt everything in a whole new way that’ll take forever to break. Whoever got in hasn’t got anything useful yet but they shouldn’t have been able to.” Sollux says. 

“And you can tell that it’s been locked even though it’s been erased?” you ask. 

“Yeah, I can tell the system encrypted itself and someone’s just copied across everything and tried to wipe it afterwards. But the encryption process causes- yes I can tell. They got in when they shouldn’t have been able to, and took everything. If this makes its way back into the hands of the empire they can definitely put enough time and minds on it that I can’t promise it’ll withstand.” Sollux warns you. 

If they’d tortured the crew then it wouldn’t have encrypted, a member of the crew would have been authorised. So this was someone who knew your systems but didn’t have full clearance, seemingly with good reason. 

“Someone betrayed us.” you whisper.

“It looks like it.” Sollux agrees. 

You rub your hands over your face and try to think. The rest of your crew is watching you anxiously, you need to do something. 

“All of you come back, bring the dead. Nepeta, take pictures of where Roughcub was killed. Take pictures of anything Terezi could use but be quick. Five minutes.” you order and close the line. 

“Chart a course to follow the imperial ship at a safe distance, disguise our presence and tell me exactly where they look to be going. Tavros, I need you to go get your bugs and I need you to get ready to use a lot of psionics.” you order. Tavros snaps to attention and rushes off under your command, everyone else leaps into action, predicting courses and discussing theories about the destination of the other ship. No one questions your orders. 

The rest of your crew returns back and the ship kicks into high gear to follow. When you get closer you can tell that the ship you’re chasing is the Icedart, a decent sized vessel, bigger than yours but not as maneuverable. It focuses mostly on firepower but even it is not immune to everything.

You do not attack them right away, you stalk them towards the imperial station that they’re going to. It would, of course, be desperately stupid to steer a pirate ship there. Good thing then that your ship is, by design, easily disguisable as a rush delivery imperial ship. This is not the first time that your crew has pulled a stunt like this but none of you like to push your luck and this is REALLY fucking risky. 

Two of your crew offload a crate onto the station in the back entrance, dropping a signal repeater that’ll allow Sollux to hack their system to spoof records that say you should be there but create enough administrative chaos to delay you until your mission is complete. Your two rust crewmembers in worn imperial uniforms, armed with clipboards and the ability to repeatedly argue around the same point and waste time are your front line. You need them to be annoying, persistent and distracting enough that no one will notice that the crate is just filled with random office supplies and other shit lying about your ship and, oh, about twenty fruit flies. 

You sit and wait, listening to a quiet feed of your two crewmembers insisting on seeing a permit signed before them and then one of them running it inside to ‘the boss’ and wasting more time. To your right Tavros is limp in a tipped back chair next to you, his eyes staring but not seeing the room before him. Instead he is literally bugging the crew. Sollux pulled the manifest of the Icedart and Tavros is tracking down and listening in to the conversations of the likeliest candidates. You just have to wait and hope you’ll get lucky. 

Someone betrayed you, betrayed the rebellion and now good people are dead and more still are at risk. 

Tavros lifts a hand, he’s got something, just not enough yet. You all tensely wait as your crew below continues to waste time insisting that as well as dropping off this crate they were also meant to pick one up. Hmm, no not that one. Maybe this one? Actually could they see the first one again? Hmm, better ask the boss. 

“Boldluck.” Tavros says, blinking and sitting up. 

“Boldluck betrayed us.” he nods. You gesture to another crewmember and they send the signal to finish up to your crew below. 

“Boldluck.” you repeat. 

Boldluck is a pirate, not one you’ve ever liked much. Every time you see him he tries to fight you and he wounded one of your crew once in an attempt to goad you into it. You’ve suspected before that he secretly harbours pitch feelings for you. You’d never return those feelings, even if you weren’t something to Sollux now you don’t trust Boldluck enough to be pitch for him. He’s a scummy olive pirate who isn’t a member of the rebellion but cares enough about money to sometimes help out, for a fee. You don’t trust a man whose loyalty has a price but sometimes needs must. He has no access to your systems but he’s been granted temporary passes before that expire right after he’s no longer needed, exactly the kind of knowledge that fits the bill. 

You contact Terezi and tell her that you have a plan, that you’ll contact her later to get the rest of it arranged but Vriska really ought to make sure she isn’t busy. 

When The Icedart leaves the station so do you, you trail them for a while and watch as when you’re out of easy rescue range you give your command with no joy or malice in your blood for it. 

“Sollux.” you say softly. He looks at you, awaiting whatever you have to say. 

“I need you to grab hold of their computer system from here, the biggest part, whatever you can get. I want you to rip it out and bring it back to us, as unharmed as you can. Can you do that?” you ask him. 

“That… that won’t solve the problem of them having the data.” Sollux says slowly. 

“I know.” you say, your eyes set on the image of the ship on the screen. 

“Ripping it out will kill everyone on board.” Equius tells you, like you haven’t just experienced what happens to a space ship with a giant hole in the side. 

“I know. I didn’t ask for this information, I asked Sollux if he could do it. Can you?” you say sharply and look back at Sollux. 

“I can.” Sollux says slowly. 

“Captor, remove their computer system as unharmed as you can and bring it here. That’s an order.” you tell him. Your crew are staring at you, returning fire in a fight is nothing new for you, defending others is nothing new, but coldly setting out a first attack to destroy an entire ship is new. You’d bet that Equius set up weapons to take that ship out if it came to it but certainly he prepared more to render it powerless so you could get out of this bloodlessly. 

Sollux does not question your order, he does not disobey you. You watch as the side of the ship explodes and a machine floats towards your ship. It’s tempting to look away but you did this, you need to watch. You hope that everyone aboard that ship lived lives of pure malevolent evil, hurting the innocent and that they had no emotional ties to anyone else. It won’t be the case though. Some people on that ship will have been alright, just doing what they were told. Most of them were probably alright if you knew them, they probably had interests like baking or cross stitch, they had friends and quadrants. You believe there is good in everyone and that belief is thorny and painful now. You didn’t do a good thing here today, but doing nothing would be worse. 

There is good in everyone, but there is bad too. You’re a good person, at least you like to think you are and you try to do the right thing. As surely as there must be some good within the soul of the Empress, some part of her that were the situation drastically different you could like or even befriend it also holds true that within yours is something dark. You killed people today and to make it worse you aren’t done yet. 

“Bring the computer aboard, put it in the hold. Send a message to Terezi to get her ass on Vriska’s ship and tell Vriska to wait for me to tell her where to be. Set a course for the Outlands.” you order the bridge at large and march off out of the room. 

“Karkat!”

That’s Sollux. You keep heading to your block, your coat whipping behind you as you stride quickly. 

“Karkat, what was that? What- talk to me.” he says loudly, catching up to you. 

“I need to be on my own.” you say tightly. 

“You need to be in your block at least.” Sollux concedes as you open the door by slamming your fist on the controls. He slips in after you. 

“Sollux-”

“What was that? What are you doing? You’ve never asked me to do something like that before.” he says, talking over you. 

“I’m sorry, I don’t like making you do things like that. If I’d had any other option I wouldn’t have.” you apologise and you can hardly look at him. 

“Obviously, I wasn’t thinking about that. I’m worried about you.” Sollux says and you jump when his hand touches your face. 

“We could… talk about it.” he offers. 

Behind Sollux you can see your things arranging themselves into a shape that looks suspiciously pile shaped. 

“You don’t have to do that, I’m not dangerous. I’m not going to turn on you or the crew, you don’t need to talk me down like this is an emergency.” you tell him but he’s already gently leading you that way as he walks backwards. Your words actually make him laugh and shake his head. 

“I don’t think I’d be able to think an idea like that up about you even if I had a million sweeps. I didn’t even think that shit when I hated you.” Sollux laughs and falls backwards on the pile. 

He’s smiling and he just killed people, you made him do it. 

“We can jam, you look like you need it.” Sollux offers you again. 

“You don’t feel pale for me though, you’re red for me.” you say weakly. 

“How about you don’t tell me how I pity you and instead you get down here.” he replies a little sharply. 

You’re weak at the end of the day and for Sollux you always have been. You’ve always thought you were too soft to be a troll, a real one at least. You came out wrong. It should be no surprise that you do fall into that pile with him, nor should it be of any revelation to anyone that you cry. You cry for the people you had him kill who could have been turned from the Empire and done good but now have no choice to. You cry for the rebels who were betrayed by someone you knew wasn’t worth your full trust and yet he was allowed to still be near your fellow rebels. They were just trolls trying to make the universe a better place, they didn’t deserve that. You cry for the captain who you never got as close to as he deserved, he was a good man and now he’s dead. 

You rip out all your feelings and failings and drop them into Sollux’s hands and you confess that you would do it again and what you plan to do now. You confess that you know he doesn’t pity you this way and that he’s just trying to help. 

Sollux tells you that you’re stupid if you really believe that but he pities you anyway, he doesn’t specify just how he pities you. 

By the time the ship arrives at the Outlands you are whole again, put back together like a pane of shattered glass under Sollux’s careful attention. Maybe it’s a blessing that you don’t have the time to overthink this development for you both. 

The Outlands are not so much a space station as they are a pattern of wildly changing station segments that changes as people come and go. The place is a winding maze where a troll of the right mindset and the right cashflow can buy almost anything. It presents itself as the pirate capital, wild and lawless and it’s been known to change its location several times. The thing is that anarchy is one of those things that sounds cool and sexy but is in practice wildly impractical. 

There is a code within the Outlands and though the details of it vary there are a few key points that everyone knows. And they are BRUTALLY enforced. 

No killing within the Outlands, if you can make it onto the place you are safe.  
No slaves or slave trading, pirates live and die for their freedom so they won’t take anyone else’s.

These rules, though very loose are taken seriously. If you find Boldluck here you cannot kill him, but that’s fine. You hope that you don’t. The key thing is that there are other rules that are not written down anywhere and some hold them differently than others. For example an unofficial third rule would be:

3) It’s us against them.

Meaning pirates against the empire. Selling out other pirates is not a violation of the code of the Outlands but is something people take a dim view on. If a pirate will sell someone else out who’s to say that they won’t sell YOU out? A traitor is a traitor and people rarely betray others just the once. If there was a third official rule it’d be that. But what does such a rule ask of you? Not selling people out is clear enough but are you obligated to help fellow pirates in distress against the empire? Are you obligated to fight them? You say yes, others say no. But the reception you expect is just what you get when you walk into the most heavily packed bar in the Outlands and start shouting. 

You tell everyone just who you are. You tell them you’re a pirate, that you’re with the rebellion. You probably don’t need to, you know most of the people in here and most of them either owe you a favour now or have before. So when you tell them what Boldluck did, that he betrayed your people and risked the lives of many more you know that your words carry weight here. 

“I want to know where that traitor is.” you snarl. 

“What’re you gonna do when you catch him?” a woman shouts at you. 

“I think we all know I’m not very good at revenge.” you admit. There’s laughter across the room. You were once accused of being the nicest intergalactic pirate and rebel the universe has ever seen. When you were younger people were put off by how abrasive you can be but pirates just find it funny and are just as shitty back because it’s FUNNY, which means that you have no cover for your baser nature of generally just trying to help everyone get along and make things not suck for everyone. People LIKE you, it’s baffling really. 

“But,” you continue slowly, “the empire takes a dim view on traitors too.” 

Vriska Serket, while not a pirate at all, is often seen in the Outlands. You meet her here often enough, everyone knows that you’re friends. She’s a notorious pirate hunter and she’s caught loads of them but mysteriously they always get free and escape at the last moment and almost always it’s the fault of people who aren’t Vriska. She doesn’t want to end pirates, she likes pirates, she wants to hunt and chase them for fun and she’s grown out of breaking her toys. It’s a running joke that she’ll show up here for a good time and never do anything about all the pirates here at all, she’s basically an honorary one. Everyone knows that from the Empire’s point of view Vriska’s as bent as they get and even people who don’t know about Terezi’s role in the rebellion suspect her by proxy. 

From the faces of the pirates around you it’s obvious that the idea of being caught for real by Vriska and actually subjected to the Empire’s supposed mercy is a sobering thought. You’re not creative at vengeance but the Empire absolutely is. 

“Boldluck fucking robbed me once.” someone says irritably. 

“He tipped off a ship I’d been scoping out and pocketed the reward for it.” another adds. 

Buoyed by the agreement of others story after story about Boldluck’s dishonesty and generally shitty behaviour comes rolling out. Less than half an hour after you walked into the Outlands you’re leaving with his last known coordinates and destination on a piece of paper and your wallet a little lighter for the fee of jogging someone’s memory. Your source had it very quietly suggested to them by several other pirates that their tip had better be legit or else they’d find out just how much you can hurt someone without breaking Outland rules. It was the general consensus of those people that you can’t lie to Karkat Vantas, he’s nice and remember how he helped your moirail out with her ship when it had that failure? And so on and so on. 

You leave your dead rebels at the Outlands with messages to the rebellion as to where they are in case their friends or quadrants want to say goodbye.

The crew has their orders, follow the directions, find Boldluck’s ship, disable its propulsion and capture its crew. The task is undertaken with utmost seriousness. Your tip was good, Boldluck is right where your informant said he’d be which is good for you. 

You board the ship, fight and restrain several crewmembers yourself and stand there waiting as Boldluck is brought to you by Equius. His hands are tied behind his back and Equius forces the man to his knees in front of you. When Equius forces someone to their knees they damn well know about it. 

“What is this ab-” 

“Traitor.” you accuse him. 

Boldluck’s eyes widen and then a sly smile spreads on his face. 

“Are you pissed off, are you? What happened to make you so mad, Karkat?” he grins. 

“We are not on first name terms, Boldluck. You betrayed the rebellion, a whole ship of innocent people are dead because of you.” you snap at him. 

“A wild accusation, you know if you wanted me on my knees you only had to ask.” Boldluck grins, cocky and overconfident. Several of his crew who are tied up in the room laugh. 

A deep and very angry growl resonates from the area that Sollux is currently standing and the room starts getting that static angry psionic in a confined space feel to it.

“We heard it from the mouth of the captain of the Icedart, the one you sold us out to.” you say simply. 

That wipes the smile off of Boldluck’s face. 

“So what? Like you can’t handle that, unless I’ve overestimated you.” he says but his tone isn’t as steady now.

“I hate traitors and I can’t let you put people at risk and as much as I want revenge I don’t think there’s anything I could possibly do that’d make up for what you did. I’m just not that creative.” you say, crouching down so that you’re eye to eye with him. 

“But Chief Justice Pyrope, Terezi, she’s awfully good when it comes to real justice. The people she works with are creative at the kind of horrible evil that I couldn’t come up with in a hundred sweeps. She’s on her way here now on The Anansi. Vriska Serket’s tracking your ass down right now, it helps that I told her where to come.” you shrug. 

“Now who’s betraying the rebellion, you’re working for the Empire. That shit pirate hunter is one thing but-” Boldluck accuses you, he was never close enough into the rebellion’s work to know about Terezi. 

“He doesn’t work for them, they work for him.” Nepeta corrects Boldluck coldly. That’s not accurate, you’re all in the rebellion together, it’s not like you’re leading it but you won’t correct her here. 

“Yeah, see, the thing about Vriska is that she loves games. Pirate hunting, it’s a game. She chases me sometimes for fun too, putting up appearances and all. Everyone knows that when she’s after you that you’ll have to put everything into evading her and maybe she’ll catch you but you’ll probably escape. It’s like those saturday morning cartoons, it’s a game. Everyone knows that, people talk.” you nod. 

“Do you know why people don’t know what she’s like when she’s not playing games?” you ask softly. 

Boldluck stares at you, it seems he has no guess. 

“No one is around after to talk about it. But maybe you’re thinking that you can get around this, even if Terezi and Vriska are on my side there are other justices and you have information to trade, right? Except even they take a dim view of traitors and liars. People who double cross. If a pirate in your position was to insist to an imperial ship that they could get intel from a rebel ship and then that pirate was to destroy that ship to cover up that the intel was bad and try to pass it off as an accident or rebel attack, that’d be really bad. They’d ignore everything you had to say in your defence, any information would be written off as false or worse yet a trap.” you tell him. 

“But I didn’t DO that! You can’t just make shit up!” Boldluck snarls at you. Equius squeezes his shoulder ever so slightly, you think you hear his bones groan. 

“That’s good, very convincing. Say it like that when Terezi asks about the computer from the Icedart that’s in your hold.” you smile, though you don’t feel happy. 

You raise your palmhusk and speak. 

“Hey Nep, what’s the status?” you ask her. 

“Computer planted and Sollux’s lock is in place, no one’s getting in here until Vwhisker’s ship comes close.” Nepeta says with cheer. 

“Thanks.” you tell her. 

“I really didn’t want to do this, but if the Empire gets that information, which they may already have because if I was on the Icedart I would have made a backup somewhere or sent something, then so many people will die. So many people will suffer because we can’t help them, people who are trying to fix things will die horrible and terrible deaths. But it looks like this is a situation where no matter what either they will or you will and I have to choose, so that’s how it is. For what it’s worth this doesn’t make me happy and for your sake I hope they don’t give you what you deserve, but they probably will.” you sigh. 

You don’t bid him goodbye or untie him. You have enough time to get away from the ship before Vriska and Terezi arrive and they’ll probably get free in that time but they can’t destroy the evidence you planted or move the ship. 

Boldluck’s trial and grisly execution are broadcast live across the empire. You really feel that you ought to watch since you were responsible, you should stare the consequences of your actions down. Mysteriously the ship happens to be near some celestial phenomena that interrupt that signal when it goes out and for some reason the crew just can’t seem to get the ship working to move it. Equius sweats profusely when you ask him about it. You also can’t download the feed later, to which the rest of the crew say how mysterious that is and it’s probably not worth watching anyway is it, Captain? 

“Are you blocking my digital feed?” you ask Sollux, walking into his block without knocking. 

“Yes.” Sollux says without looking up. 

“Unblock it.” you tell him. 

“I have already for almost everything.” he says. 

“You’re blocking anything to do with Boldluck.” you say and he nods. 

“I should be able to watch what happened to him, I’m responsible for it. I have to face what I did or else who am I?” you tell him. Sollux finishes typing with a loud snap of the return key and swivels to face you. 

“You’re Karkat Vantas. That’s who you are if you watch it or if you don’t. You did what you had to so that Vriska and Terezi could discredit and end him, you saved hundreds of thousands of lives. Again. It wasn’t nice but it was the right choice and if you watch it you’re going to agonise about it and hate yourself because you are Karkat Vantas and that’s what you DO.” Sollux says pointedly. 

“So you’re… what? Protecting me from myself? Acting pale? I’ll give you that the pile was maybe an emergency before but you don’t have to-” you’re cut short by your tongue sticking itself to the roof of your mouth with a fizzling sensation that speaks of psionics.

“Before you accuse me of lying or putting myself through something that I hate let me clear this up because I’ve been experimenting with this whole quadrant thing.” Sollux says as he gets to his feet. 

“MMMPH!” you protest. 

“I don’t think like you do, I don’t think. I’m still red most of all but I can easily blur that out. I do pity you and pity is shared in pale romance it’s just not totally the same. I can’t always think of you like that but sometimes when you’re hurt and pitiful it seems like I can without any problem. It’s a little… weird sometimes.” Sollux admits.

See?! See? You knew this wouldn’t work. 

“Don’t look like that.” Sollux snaps at you and shoves you in the shoulder. 

“I still want to be whatever colour you want me in. Sometimes I’m a hundred percent there with you but maybe not always but if I offer something to you then it’s because I want to, you’re not making me and I’m not faking it to humour you. If I don’t want to or can’t I’ll say.” he tells you.

Your tongue is still held in place. 

“But, for what it’s worth I felt pale for you last time and protecting you from this is something I would have done even when we were just friends.” he says with an easy shrug and he lets you go. For all that he’s not holding you mute now you don’t have words. 

“I won’t keep blocking it but just don’t watch it, ok? Please?” Sollux says and you know he’ll stick to his word and let you if you want. Sollux doesn’t strike you as the type to try to hyper control your life. You will have to watch it though, if you can you’ll drive yourself crazy until you do and then Sollux is right because you will loathe yourself for whatever you see. 

You step forward and rest your head on his chest. 

“Can you keep it blocked?” you whisper. 

“...Yeah.” he says just as quietly and strokes his hand through the back of your hair. 

This is nice. He cares and it feels right, it feels good, it’s what you need. You never thought you’d get it but this is it. You don’t understand why he’s willing to do this but you should thank any gods willing to listen for him doing so. 

He stays with you in wandering quadrants and crossed colours over the next two sweeps. You’re not glued at the hip, he doesn’t shadow you everywhere but usually wherever you go he goes. You fight, you make up, you do a lot more than that. Your actions against Boldluck did indeed save lives, no compromised information appears to have got out and no one listened to a damn thing he had to say and so the rebellion goes ahead as planned. 

The rebellion grows in size, you and your comrades on other ships annex planets from imperial control and start staking out actual territory. You get to a certain size and it seems like you become a viable alternative to the empire for people. Kids ditch the draft and escape off of Alternia to join your ranks, important people on the Empress’ side defect for yours. There’s talk, whispers in meetings and in bars, that this is a war that can really be won and might be won soon. 

For one reason or another you keep finding yourself in the thick of things, always there when important events go down and Vriska and Terezi tell you that your name and face appear in Imperial briefings all the time. The Empress thinks that you’re the head of the rebellion and it’s your head that she wants. Obviously her intel is bad but still it means that you’re always on the move from one mission to the next. 

Storming the Empress’ ship happens almost entirely by accident, a perfect alignment of you having the forces right there and being just so close that you can’t miss the opportunity. You call for more backup and with no one else to lead what is now very obviously a fleet you end up calling the shots. 

You board the royal ship and you demand the surrender of everyone you meet, at first they refuse but your forces- your FRIENDS and you cut through them. When you make enough of a dent people start throwing their weapons down. There are no guards who are willing to stop you by the time you get to her throne room. You throw the doors open and Sollux deflects what fire there is. Terezi and Vriska take their moment to show their true side and start taking out anyone loyal enough to the Empress to still fight. 

Everyone knows of the powers of the Empress, mind control, psionics and more still only whispered about. There’s no evidence of any of this to your eyes and as you sweep into the room her closest subjects finally surrender, abandoning her leadership. 

The Empress stands there in front of her golden throne and all alone up there, clutching onto her crown and looking at you with hate and fear. You’re on the ground level below, surrounded by all of your friends and people you trust. 

“This isn’t happening, this can’t- WHY?!” she hisses, backing up and still holding onto her crown. 

“It’s over, surrender.” you tell her and point your sickle at her. 

“NEVER!” she howls and grabs her trident. 

She’s not the first seadweller you’ve fought and though her height and power give her an advantage she seems thrown somehow. She draws first blood, a stab through your side that seemingly misses everything vital but sprays mutant red around you. You get the second, you roll through her legs to avoid an attack and with two deft slices you remove her ability to stand or use her legs. You kick her weapon towards the crowd, one which has grown. Almost everyone who invaded the ship must be up here watching you. 

“It’s over.” you tell her again.

“You can’t let her live!” Vriska insists. 

You look up from the Empress, bleeding and livid on the floor to the room of people very keenly watching you. If you don’t kill her there will be loyalists forever trying to free her and the people that she wronged will never have closure. Her era needs to end and sometimes the optics of that message can be just as important as the message itself. Your friends are watching, sympathetic looks on their faces. They know you don’t want this but at the same time you must. 

“Why- I’m gonna-” she snarls at you and opens her hand. You freeze but nothing more than a psionic crackle comes to pass, you’ve seen more from Sollux in his sleep. 

“Listen, I’m sorry. But the Empire can’t go on like this.” you tell her and pull her up by her shoulder. She tries to grab you but her hands get mysteriously held back in red and blue. You shift your grip to one of her horns and hold her steady. 

“I’m sorry.” you say again softly. 

“Fuck you.” she snarls. 

That’s fair. 

You don’t want to think about what you’re having to do right now. The Empress needs to die so that your species can move forward and do things right, so you can heal. It’s not nice but it’s the right thing. You put your blade to her throat and you end it. 

She slumps forward and her crown slips off of her head, sliding down one horn as the clasp pops open. It curls and starts to fall. Out of dumb reflex you catch it. Your hand wraps around the metal and-

You’re staring at the Empress as she literally fades into an after image of herself. Behind her is an image just as ghostly of the former Empress and behind her another woman of the same colour and back and back. 

“What…” you whisper. 

There’s something behind you and you feel it instinctively, you twist and face… 

You can’t describe it, not as a whole. When you try that it’s as if your eyes start to try to crawl their way out of your head in protest. But bits of it you can. Shifting molten metal that watches, stares. It bubbles and burbles, coiling and though nothing on it could be described as an eye it is watching. 

“What.” you say again. 

It doesn’t talk. There’s just images in your mind, thoughts shoved in there with all the care of someone plunging their hand into a bag of minced meat and rummaging around. A bright hotness coming from the Alternian sky, crashing into the ground, a troll, a promise, blood. A troll who tried to be stronger than others but failed, to their killer goes the rough metal crown. A stronger troll, replaced by a stronger troll, replaced by a smarter troll, replaced by a smarter AND stronger one. An unbroken line of improvement of dynasties and eons past by and you killed the Empress. 

Your war flashes through your mind, brought to the surface by attention that’s not your own. Your strategic calls, the victories you had, the territory you took. You beat the Empress. It is YOURS, you won, you can command anyone now. 

The thought makes you shake the presence off of you as you recoil. You don’t want to subjugate, to terrorise or maim people at all. 

You try to look at the thing, rolling, boiling metal that radiates predatory interest. 

It seems to be thinking. Your pretty frugal childhood flares in your mind only to be replaced by visions of gold and jewels, trinkets and adornments. So much more than you could ever want. 

“No.” you tell it. You want money but only because you have people to pay, ships to repair, people to help. A little cash to buy the few things you want for yourself here and there is enough for you. 

It reaches out with… something. Turns your head. The line of succession behind you is all tyrian for as far back as you can see though it stretches far further than that. In your head visions of reversing the hemospectrum dance, making highbloods into the very thing they wanted lowbloods to be. Vengeance, poetic justice. 

“No!” you snap. You don’t want anyone to be enslaved or ground down, none of that is what you want. 

The surface of whatever it is shifts like an oil slick on water, dazzlingly prismatic and dangerously toxic. It bubbles and its shape shifts a little in waves that make you feel motion sick to see. 

Your mind is filled to the brim all of a sudden with beautiful trolls, people who want nothing but you, it’s a kind of sight so slick, writhing and multi coloured that if it happened to your husktop you’d be sure it was now filled with viruses. You understand without being told that this is being offered to you. 

You don’t want it. The idea of an endless sexy harem sounds great to people because those people haven’t considered that surely it’d be horribly awkward. All those names and intimate details to remember, and what if they didn’t like each other? It’d be the most high stakes shift scheduling you’ve ever had to do. Besides, would they really want you and what kind of life would that be for those theoretical people anyway? 

It’s a unique experience to feel the complete bafflement and building frustration of some entity that’s almost as old as your species is as a whole and that you can’t even quite look at directly. Stupidly you keep thinking. You wouldn’t want a whole mess of people wanting to bang you at any given second, you’re perfectly happy as you are now with-

SOLLUX. 

He appears in your mind like a vision, perfect in his imperfections and he fills you with adoration. Something like a smile curls around your thinkpan from the inside, like teeth nudging at your cortex. You care about him. You shouldn’t have thought of him, now this thing knows about him. You should also be careful not to think of-

Oh, god damnit. 

You see Sollux and all of your friends and the thing feels thoughtful. It watches you. You feel a sudden shifting of something and you notice it first in Tavros. His hair greying, his face getting warped with age and his body becoming feeble. It starts happening to Sollux too and by the time Nepeta is greying at the temples Tavros is dead on the floor and you’re shouting, BEGGING for it to stop. 

A deal, then. 

You are seared, like a brand through your soul and abruptly you’re back in front of your friends and the gathered crowd with the crown in your hands. You look at it and feel its smile in the back of your mind. You didn’t agree to anything, this isn’t- whatever this is, it can’t make you. 

It laughs and you feel it in your blood and know full well that the sound didn’t go through your ears. 

“The Empress is dead.” a neutral male voice comes from above you somewhere, echoing from several points around the room. It must be the ship’s computing system. 

“Without authorization from the rightful owner of this ship, the self destruct sequence will begin.” it continues. 

“WHAT?!” you shout. 

“Karkat! Put the crown on! The ship might recognise you as the new leader if you do.” Kanaya says desperately. 

“But I don’t want to be the leader!” you insist. 

“Self destruct starting in two seconds.” the ship tells you. 

“KARKAT VANTAS PUT IT ON!” several of your friends yell at once.

You can’t let your friends die! You jam the crown on your head and feel its satisfaction, you’re an even stronger host than the last one. 

“Stop the self destruct!” you shout up at the ceiling. 

“Self destruct sequence deactivated, Emperor Vantas.” the voice announces. 

No, why did it have to say that of all things? The words Emperor Vantas ripple around the room and there’s no way they can be taken back. 

“I didn’t want to rule, I just want to fix things.” you say unhappily. 

“I think that’s part of the job now.” Terezi grins and hops up onto the same level as you. You’re next to the solid gold throne, you don’t want a solid gold throne. In fact if you had your way you’d have every bit of it scanned and documented for posterity and then melt it down so you can put it to good use. Actually, you CAN do that, huh?

“Emperor Vantas!” Terezi shouts, lifting your arm. 

Emperor Vantas the thing in your head repeats. The crown, it’s the crown that’s pleased with this. 

You’re able to retreat to a room with your friends, leaving your crew to control the situation and do whatever they think is best. Honestly you can’t think about any of that right now. 

“I don’t want to be an emperor!” you say in a panicked whine as you pace back and forth. 

“Little late for that.” Sollux points out. 

“But I’m not a leader, I can’t be a leader. I mean, a captain sure or- or for smaller shit but not this!” you tell them. 

“You obviously led the rebellion just fine, you won after all.” Equius points out and you stop to look at him. 

“It’s not the time for that joke, Eq. Like yeah the rebellion didn’t really have a leader, it was a group effort. The ‘ha ha it’s secretly Karkat’ joke is old.” you grumble. 

“That wasn’t a joke Karkat. You’re the leader of the rebellion, there’s no way you didn’t know that.” Vriska insists. 

“KK, I pity you but you’re denser than a black hole sometimes. Yes, you were the leader. Now you’re the leader of the empire, you’ll be great.” Sollux groans. 

“Better than that, you’ll be good.” Nepeta smiles and something in you relaxes a little. Good, not as in competent but rather not evil. 

“Holy shit there’s so much to do. We need to make a list.” you mutter.

Sollux floats in the air and opens his husktop onto his crossed legs and watches you slightly expectantly. 

“We need to… to go through the crew of this ship. Work out who’ll work with us and who we need to get out of here. Gotta get word to the rest of the rebellion. Uh… check out what’s automated and change it, the drones and shit I mean.” you start. 

“That last one I can do.” Sollux nods. 

“We need to get this ship a power source that isn’t a person, see what help we can offer them. We’ve got to go through all of her files, spread the news about her death to the rest of the Empire and see how that goes.” you list off. 

“Huh. I wonder if this ship does have a helmsman. That voice we heard earlier wasn’t one for sure, that was a computer program.” Sollux wonders aloud. 

“It’s your ship, Karkat. Both the helmsman if there is one and the ships computer systems ought to respond to you, you could just ask.” Equius suggests. 

You look up at the ceiling which is stupid but it’s a dumb instinct you can’t fight. 

“Hello?” you ask, no response. 

“Helmsman?” you try again. 

“Error, the helmsman’s speaking privileges have been revoked and locked. If you have an inquiry I am happy to assist you.” a voice above says. 

“See? Computer program.” Sollux nods. 

“Right. Uh, where is the helmsman?” you ask. 

“The location of the helmsman is in the helm.” the computer responds. Sollux facepalms and groans. 

“Tell it to fetch the admission data on the current helmsman.” he suggests when he takes his hands away from his face. 

“Fetch admission data on the current helmsman, please.” you repeat. 

“The current helmsman was installed on the eleventh of the sixth, seventy nine eighty four at one thirty pm.” the computer informs you. 

“That was almost two hundred sweeps ago, no way is that right.” you whisper but the computer is still talking. 

“-weight at time of helming. Title The Psiionic, hatchname Mituna Captor.” it continues. 

“CAPTOR?!” you yelp. 

“Sollux’s ancestor, explains the time.” Vriska whispers in awe. 

“KK, we have to unplug him.” Sollux insists and you agree. 

“Sollux, if the information on how many sweeps he has been in there is correct then there’s no way that he’ll survive.” Equius warns. 

“You think he’d want to? Karkat grant him speaker access again.” Sollux says coldly and directs that last part at you. 

You’re not sure about this but you do as he says. 

The moment the permission falls from your lips Sollux’s ancestor has access to the speakers again. The entire ship is flooded with the sounds of endless anguished screaming, ringing through every room and echoing down every corridor. You revoke the access right away but you’re all shaken. 

“I’m going to unplug him.” Sollux states. 

“No you’re not.” you counter.

Sollux freezes and then slowly turns to look at you with narrowed eyes. 

“Remember how certain things are blocked on our ship’s network for me?” you ask him subtly. Boldluck’s execution video is still restricted, not that you’ve thought about trying to watch it in ages. 

“Equius can disconnect him and set up a temporary power source though I bet we don’t have anything powerful enough to compete with him I just want the life support and the computers running. He’ll take care of it, painlessly. Right, Equius?” you say and Equius nods. 

Sollux doesn’t need to see someone who’ll probably look just like him in a state like that, it’ll haunt him. You’re pale for him and you want to protect him. 

You divide tasks up between your friends, some of the tasks they think up before they’d occurred to you and you drag Sollux away to somewhere, anywhere else with computers that you can leave him to sift through. Naturally you only linger nearby to provide verbal access and authorisation to things for him. He’s distracted and tense and he winces when the lights flicker. You wonder if he inferred that the helmsman just died or if he heard it. 

Two bluebloods interrupt your attempts to keep Sollux soothed and calm, both of them look anxious as they eye you but though you notice them you do nothing until one of them actually says something. 

“Emperor Vantas, sir. Your… excellency.” one begins, bowing deeply. 

“It’s Karkat.” you say. 

“Karkat.” the blueblooded woman says like it’s a prayer and bows even lower. 

“What can I do for you?” you ask and the pair of them exchange looks that are equal parts confused and terrified. 

“There were, that is to say, a lot of the people on the ship have questions.” the woman says as she looks up at you and then awkwardly straightens out of her bow. 

“Alright?” you nod and idly run your fingers up the back of Sollux’s neck. The two of them stare but say nothing about it.

“What will happen to us now, Emperor Karkat- Emperor Vantas?” the man asks. 

“It depends on if you’re going to work with me or not.” you say simply. 

“Yes, the bronze man and the Justice Pyrope were filtering out people loyal to the Emp- to the former Empress. But what, if we may ask, is going to happen now?” he says. 

“We fix the empire. No more hemospectrum, no more terrorising people.” you say. 

The two of them look dubiously at each other. 

“Oh come on, haven’t either of you ever felt that things were unfair? Didn’t either of you ever have friends or quadrantmates in warmer shades and think it was unfair how they were treated? Or think it was unfair how you were treated compared to people colder than you?” you groan.

They seem uncertain. 

“Answer me.” you tell them and both of them tense up. 

“I’m sorry Emperor Vantas, I- I may have… it’s just that’s how it is.” the woman says in a trembling voice. 

“Well it doesn’t have to be. It’s not that way in the rebellion and it won’t be that way now.” you inform them both. 

“KK, I need you to authorise this.” Sollux interrupts. 

You turn and look at the screen, reading and mumbling under your breath slightly. 

“Oh! So if I approve that you have the same level of access and authority that I have over every system?” you ask and Sollux nods. 

“But- but no one can have the same level of power as the Empress. Uh, sorry, Emperor.” the woman says hastily. 

“Well I’m the Emperor now and I say he can. We’re not doing things how they’ve always been done.” you tell them both and then verbally grant Sollux’s permission request, now he won’t have to ask you for anything. 

“Actually, can you tell me what the biggest room in this ship is?” you ask the two bluebloods. 

“That would be the grand concert hall Emperor Vantas.” the man says. You really don’t want people calling you Emperor Vantas but you guess that you have to put up with it for now. 

“Could everyone who works on this ship fit in that one room?” you ask. 

The two bluebloods share a look and then nod. 

“He’s not trying to kill you all.” Sollux says without wondering. 

“Why would I kill everyone?!” you say in horror. 

“Because they worked for the Empress and you want them all mysteriously in the same enclosed space?” Sollux points out. 

“I- what? No. I just want to talk to everyone at once, I don’t want rumours going around about things I didn’t say. Besides without the people who already work on this ship we’re screwed, even on my ship I couldn’t run the whole thing by myself if everyone just up and left. I don’t know where exactly everything is or precisely how everything works. Could you call a meeting for me?” you say, asking the two bluebloods the last part. 

“If that’s you order Emperor we will do it.” the woman says and bows. 

“That’s… ok. Tell people to start heading there, I’ll be there in a moment.” you nod and the two of them bow again and back out of the room. 

“I really can’t wait until people stop acting like I’m going to rip them open and throw their insides around like wet party streamers.” you mutter. 

“Considering your predecessor Emperor Vantas I think you’ll be waiting a while. Or maybe not. Anyone who can’t see right through to the fact that you’re a marshmallow in a leather coat and boots is an idiot.” Sollux snorts and gently prods you in the side. 

“If you start getting on my case about being an Emperor when that’s something I never wanted then I’m- I’m going to shove your face in my armpit.” you threaten, opening your coat. 

“The ROYAL ARMPIT!” Sollux gasps. 

“Fucker!” you hiss and so begins the entirely childish wrestling match and slapfight to shove his face in your underarm. The end result is Sollux sitting a little way away from the computer with you in his lap. 

“I don’t know if I can do this, Sollux. I really didn’t think I was leading anything more than our crew. To be the leader of everyone is something that’s just- it’s too big.” you tell him.

“I think you not gunning for the throne this whole time makes you pretty uniquely qualified to keep it and not screw things up. Anyway you’ve got all of us.” Sollux points out. 

This is a very reasonable point. However you have a counterpoint to that. 

“Also I think the crown is evil and sentient and trying to control me.” you add. 

Sollux laughs, you don’t and then he isn’t laughing either. 

“Wait, seriously?” he asks. Maybe you shouldn’t have said anything but experience has taught you that when your instincts tell you to not tell Sollux something that you’re probably wrong because your instincts with Sollux are often stupid as hell. 

You nod and Sollux looks carefully at your crown. At the crown on your head, the one you happen to be wearing. It’s not yours. 

“It… the symbol on it is different. It was hers right in the middle before but it’s yours now somehow.” Sollux says and his fingertip taps on the arch of the band that sits across your forehead. 

“It was trying to tempt me with money, power or- or like unlimited romantic prospects.” you tell him and Sollux snorts derisively. 

“Oh yeah, that’s you alright. Desperate for power, gold, and you obviously hit on everyone you meet.” he snickers. 

“I tell you that I’m potentially being controlled by some malevolent headwear and your first instinct is to mock me? Very nice.” you sneer and hop out of his lap. 

“No way is it magic, high tech probably. It might have a neural component but if you don’t like it then take it off.” he shrugs. 

You feel like you don’t want to but at the same time he’s right, you should take it off. Slowly you lift your hands to your head and try to pull the crown free but no matter what you do the thing won’t budge. At least now Sollux is starting to look concerned. 

“Stay still.” he tells you and gets close to you, peering at the thing and trying to work a claw under the metal. He can’t. He tries to psionically pull it off of you but all that achieves is suspending you a few inches off of the floor by your head which isn’t comfortable at all. 

“Okay that’s concerning. I think I’m going to look into this thing, see what I can find. My advice for now is just… pretend like everything is cool, go lead our species and don’t make any deals with voices in your head.” Sollux advises you and you feel something bubbling back in your pan sneer at him, something that isn’t you. 

You have a meeting to attend and it pays to not be there waiting for people to arrive, that looks a little weak and needy. Thankfully you can waste time getting there by having no idea where you’re going and having to stop at several computer terminals to get directions. When you arrive not only is Sollux already in the packed room but so are several of your friends and you’ve no idea how they all got here before you without you seeing any of them on the way. 

Terezi throws a microphone at your head before you start to talk. Sollux catches you onstage, you’d seen him lingering nearby and you figured it was to protect you in case anyone tried anything so you aren’t expecting it when he sweeps you into an embrace on stage that you might call possessive if you didn’t know better. Sollux isn’t usually one to actually be public with his displays of affection and it’s not as if he has any competition is it? Even if you were interested or compatible with anyone else you hardly see why anyone would be interested. You have nothing anyone would be interested in anyway. So it can’t be possessive despite it seeming like Sollux is very publicly declaring that you’re his, he must just be stressed from the day you’ve all had or thrown by the helmsman situation. That must be it. 

With care you extricate yourself from him and stand in front of everyone and begin to talk. 

“I understand if I’m not your most favourite person right now. I just killed your last boss and now I’m sure you’re all worried about the future, I understand that. But I don’t want to fire people for no reason. I don’t know how this ship works and there’s no fucking way the Empress did either, it was people like you who kept things running, it always is. We’ve taken away people who we think would be an actual danger but unless you’re planning on killing one of us I’m not planning on kicking anyone out of their jobs.” you announce. 

The crowd looks dubious. 

“Things are going to change, yes but… look, we’re working this out as we go and if you think we’re doing something wrong then talk to us. We’re not going to kill people just because they look at us funny.” you assure them. More dubious looks. 

“And why should we even take orders from a mutant like YOU? You’re not royalty, you had no right!” a man shouts from the crowd. 

“Sollux, could you bring him up here, please?” you ask with a smile that’s all teeth. Sollux raises an eyebrow but does as you say, picking the now screeching man up and dropping him on the stage near you. 

“That’s better, what’s your name?” you ask the man who is backing away from you but considering the other people on the stage seems to be unsure about where to go. Then he seems to remember who he’s talking to and that he’s not scared of you on principle so he straightens up to answer. 

“I am Sourshot.” he says pompously. 

“And you think that the Empress and all her policies were great then, yeah?” you ask. 

“Yes!” Sourshot declares. 

“Good, great. What do you do here?” you ask. The crowd is watching carefully. 

“I am a policy administerrorisor.” he says haughtily. 

“Well, not anymore you’re not. I’m hiring you for something else. I think I’m going to call it… the opposition? You can be the leader of that.” you say with a nod. 

Sourshot seems very thrown by this, not sure if this is a good or a bad thing or exactly what his reaction should be. 

“That’s not… you can’t just make things up.” Sourshot says uneasily. 

“I can though!” you tell him cheerily. 

“Think about it though. I think that the Empress was evil and everything she did was terrible but no one’s wrong or right all of the time but I’m going to assume that she was because I don’t want to be like her. But it’s helpful to have someone arguing for the other side. If there’s shit from her regime worth keeping then you should be the one arguing for it. You’re not going to get anywhere with that mutant or hemocasteist shit but with other things you might.” you tell him. 

You get to watch the desire for power and the desire to oppose you on principle war across Sourshot’s face. Everyone else in the room is watching your exchange as well. You’re not an idiot, this exact offer isn’t important in of itself. The idea of having a more balanced decision making process is one you like and it makes it harder for those against you to claim that you’re opposing everything that is traditionally done for no reason. It doesn’t have to be this guy but it’s pretty symbolic, if he can work with you then maybe the old can transition seamlessly into the new without violence or unrest from this point. It’s the symbol that’s important, as it so often is. 

“Fine then. I’ll put a stop to this madness of yours.” Sourshot nods sharply. 

“You can try.” you tell him with a devilish grin. 

The process of transferring leadership is never easy, they don’t show that kind of stuff in movies. It’s all dramatic battles and significantly less of the paperwork and meetings that comes after. You try to be considerate and listen to everyone’s concerns and wants but all the while you can feel the crown watching you from inside your own mind. 

It speaks to you again when you’re sleeping, in actual words as well as images and thoughts this time. 

“I have seen inside your mind.” it tells you, formlessly and without a mouth in a way that makes you feel a little sick to look at. 

“If you don’t like it you could leave.” you offer, hopefully. 

“No. You’re the most powerful, I need that. I need the strongest host.” it hisses. Your eyes water even within your dream. 

“Then I guess we’re at an impasse.” you tell it. 

“No. Meenah tried to remove me and then wrung and bargained for as much power as she could to be stronger when she saw what I could do, she fought, had fire in her.” the crown hisses in your synapses. 

“Had.” you point out. Past tense. 

“Your soul, your mind…” the crown continues as if you hadn’t spoken. “You don’t want power, you don’t like it even.” 

“It’s necessary.” you shrug and the ripple of disgust is almost visible in the nothingness around you of your dream. 

“You don’t want to hurt, to crush, to rend, to prove you’re strong!” it despairs. 

“That’s not strength, that’s being an asshole.” you argue. 

“The only even SLIGHTLY tolerable thing is that you want to pail.” it goes on and that sure is Sollux’s naked form that you have floating before you now. 

“We’re not talking about him.” you tell the crown. 

“You’re so BORING! You only want to pail him and you’re nice about it.” it sneers. 

“Nice?” you repeat back. 

“Yes, nice! You want him to feel good because you want him to feel good, not as a testament to your bulge being so godly that it’d make men fill a pail at just the TOUCH of it! Or to- to bend him to your will, to debase him or get what YOU want! You’re nice about it!” the crown says in dismay. 

“I don’t want it to be like that at all. I care about him and we’re happy, thanks, so leave it alone!” you snap. 

“I could make it better…” the crown says into your mind temptingly. 

“No.” you tell it. 

The thing sighs in despair. 

“If your soul had a colour it’d be beige.” the crown sneers at you and abruptly wakes you up and keeps you awake against your will. Sollux stirs when you wake and offers you a very nice way to relax but with the feeling of being watched you can’t really take him up on the idea. Which judging from how quickly he goes back to snoring on the edge of the recuperacoon is fine by him. 

Still, frustrated malevolent forces aside your new rule that you didn’t really want is starting to go well. You televise all of your policy meetings and debates with the opposition which is a stroke of brilliance and gives the media a lot to chew over, especially now that you’ve made it clear that news sources that do more than texually try to suck you off are allowed and encouraged. It also doesn’t seem like the crew of the Empress’ ship has a bad word to say about you either. Who knew that not being the kind of leader who would launch people out of an airlock because of a bad hair day would make you popular?

It’s still difficult though, so much of how your predecessor ran things was chaotic and shifting power into the hands of your friends and former allies helps and makes you feel better but so much information is lost. You don’t even know where all of the information about conquered planets has gone. It’s presumably backed up to somewhere but the death of the helmsman corrupted a fair few things and obviously you can’t ask him now. 

Even sweeps into your rule (in the position you never wanted or asked for) you keep running into problems. Tavros has come back to the ship after a sweep on his own trying to free a planet that the Empress enslaved and has been disentangling the political situation for you. The whole thing would have gone ten times faster if any of the information about that planet was available to any of you. It’s good to see him though. 

“Tav.” you smile welcomingly and hug him close. His metal knees bump yours and you imagine that the metal part of your thigh clanks against his. 

The staff bring you dinner, you’ve got the people on the ship to at least just call you ‘sir’ rather than anything else more formal. 

“The whole thing was a nightmare.” Tavros groans as he sits down next to you. 

Waitstaff bring food out for you both only you have to drop your conversation to ask why an olive lady, Aridtear, is working because you swore you’d got out of her that. It was her anniversary with her matesprit this week and she was taking the time off to go visit her. 

“Oh, oh, sir it’s so sweet of you to have remembered but I really can’t.” Aridtear says quietly. 

“Was it getting the time off because I can absolutely-” you begin.

“She dumped me. Right after I’d bought the nonrefundable ticket to go see her. Her kismesis flipped on her, apparently they’ve been vacillating for a while without telling me and-” her breath hitches. 

“Oh, no… I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to bring it up, I just thought…” you flounder for something to say. 

“No, it’s fine, really. I shouldn’t even be saying anything. I’ll just stay here. Please, enjoy your food.” she sniffs and bows. 

“Shit, I feel like an asshole now.” you mumble.

“I think, you were trying to be thoughtful, actually.” Tavros says. 

“Yeah but I put my foot in it.” you say unhappily and quickly whip your tablet out to order her an unreasonable amount of ice cream and romance movies to be sent to her block so that if she wants to mourn her relationship she can at least do it in style. 

“Well. Brashend has confessed to hiding their copy of the records to that planet and not telling you so that they could keep it as, uh, their own little empire.” Tavros moves on. 

“What a shithead. I’m glad you’ve fixed it but I dread to think how many other places are exactly the same, what else don’t we know?” you despair. 

“Time will tell I guess.” Tavros shrugs and swallows his drink down. 

“You know, it might sound weird or something. But, I always feel better when I come back here.” Tavros says softly. 

“My company can’t be that good, Nitram. You know you don’t have to lick my boots.” you snort. 

Tavros snorts as well and nearly drowns in his cup of wine, though you can see it glistening on his nosering when he pulls the cup back after. 

“Hah, no, not that. I don’t know, maybe it’s a lot of time in a, uh, strange place or something. I was starting to feel my age a little you know? I swear I was starting to see grey hair too.” Tavros says, gesturing to his ever present mohawk. 

Your eyes flick up and, yeah, you see it. Little streaks of paler colour. At the back of your mind your crown flashes up that old fear of your friends aging and dying. You feel the same instinctive ‘no’ to the idea, you can’t have that happen. As you think it before your eyes the grey shifts back to black and when Tavros smiles at you again he seems a little lighter, a little brighter. 

Mine now. Comes the thought in the back of your head, like teeth closing around your neck. You have to stay like this now, it gave you power you wanted so you are bound to its desire for power and strength. Luckily for you, you are already the most powerful troll in the universe. 

It happens again, a few sweeps after that. It’s the ANNIVERSARY. You hate it, you hate to celebrate a day that you slit a woman’s throat on purpose for a crown you didn’t want. It’s not really about that though, it’s a chance for your friends to have an excuse to all get together in the same place. No one can argue with them about having to be back for the anniversary of the coronation, not when they’re so close to the EMPEROR of all people, wouldn’t want to disappoint him of course. Naturally they’d stay doing whatever thing they’re using you as an excuse to avoid but it’s the EMPEROR you see. What a load of shit. But you do like seeing them so you don’t push it much. Unfortunately it means that a lot of other important people want to attend the festivities and that you’d rather avoid but you can’t. 

You’re desperate to get out of some conversations that you’re forced to have. 

“Ah, sir, there’s a strange signal that we’re picking up.” one of your staff, Badcover, tells you awkwardly as you are talked at by the Chancellor of Financial Exchanges and Tax Setting. 

“Oh! Oh no, that sounds terrible. I’m sorry Chancellor I have to see to this, my apologies.” you apologise formally and grab Badcover’s arm and walk away. 

“Sorry to interrupt.” Badcover says. 

“Badcover, I’d have come with you if you’d told me that you’d wanted help picking a new colour to paint the wall in your block. I cannot STAND that man.” you say under your breath and Badcover only just conceals his laugh under a cough and leads you the right way. 

“It’s a signal from a shuttle is the thing but it seems weird to me.” Badcover says as he points to some readouts on the screen. You make a thoughtful noise in the hope that he’ll elaborate. 

“Well this signal ought to be from a fighter ship but the long range scanning systems seem to show that it’s a relatively small scout ship, long range scouting but still just scouting. It doesn’t match.” Badcover explains. 

“That is weird. Maybe it’s a problem on our end, let me get Sollux here.” you mumble and shoot him a message. 

“I thought that, which was why I checked it the logs of other satellite feeds further back. If it was a problem with us that should be fine but no, they agree with our scans. It’s been going one way for a while but it just changed course towards us a few hours ago.” Badcover adds. 

“Have you tried hailing them?” you ask. 

“Not without your authorisation for something this weird, no.” he says, shaking his head. 

“Probably smart.” you murmur. 

“What.” Sollux says, not even asks. He just steps in the room and spits the word out like it offends him. 

“You’re my worst employee.” you inform him. 

“Am not.” Sollux counters. He’s been angling a little more pitch lately and you can oblige, especially when he’s this annoying. 

“Are. Look at this.” you tell him. 

Sollux comes over, elbows you out of the way and peers at the screen. The irritation melts off, a pretty sure sign that it was mostly for show, and he sits in the chair. 

“That doesn’t make sense. Have you hailed them?” Sollux asks and Badcover shakes his head. 

“Smart. I’m moving the ship closer so we can get a better look.” Sollux tells you. He doesn’t ask. It’s YOUR ship goddamnit but, fine. The ship moves at nothing like the speed it could before when the former helmsman was powering it but it’s still faster than anything else of comparable size in your fleet thanks to Equius’ genius engineering. 

He gets close enough to scan the ship a little from a distance and bring back a picture. 

“That’s…” you trail off as you peer the blurry image. 

“That’s not a ship.” Sollux says slowly. 

“It’s obviously a ship.” you counter. 

“Ok, yes, it’s not a bowl of fruit and is actually a spaceship but it’s not a real ship. That’s the wings from the T75 and those were discontinued before your reign even started and they sure as shit don’t belong on a small non atmosphere entering vessel like that cargo shuttle part they’re attached to. None of that matches what the ship tells us it is either.” Sollux says. 

Sollux whips up a hailing message to them without asking for your permission at all and sends it. You know it used to annoy some of your crew and indeed many of your other… subjects. You hate thinking of people like that but that’s technically what they are. People accepted that your friends took slices of your power for their own work and that you bow to their judgment in their own areas but Sollux isn’t like that. He acts as if he has the same given right to do as he pleases as you do, as if his word has all the authority that only yours should have. He’s not the one wearing the fucking eldritch crown but he acts like it. It pisses some people off but you think by now most have got used to that just being how things are, besides it’s not like he’s ever actually disobeyed any of your orders on the rare occasion that you give them. 

Sollux sits back in his chair and waits, soon enough a return message pings back but it doesn’t quite make sense. The response doesn’t totally match the codes that go with it. The message tells you that the crew are in distress and you should please help now, thanks. 

“That has trap on it in big, neon, flashing letters.” you say. 

“No shit.” Sollux agrees. 

“Can you get a little closer, scan it more?” you ask and Sollux rolls his eyes like that’s a dumb question. 

“There’s two things alive in there, that’s about all I can tell you from here.” Sollux finally concludes. 

“How warm are they?” you ask, if it’s fishtrolls then you’re pretty sure just what kind of trap you’re looking at. 

“Mid-ish?” Sollux shrugs. 

“Alright, I want the holding deck cleared and a lot of armed guards down there on the other side of a force field to contain whatever’s in there.” you order the room at large and people rush to do what you say. 

“You’re going to ruin your party.” Sollux points out. 

“Oh. No.” you tell him, entirely lacking in sincerity. 

Your ship slowly drifts over to the ‘very obviously a trap’ ship and you take it inside the holding deck carefully. Bodyguards hover around you, more importantly you have Sollux next to you who can stop anything that might ever come near you. The ship slides inside and gravity switches on around it, making it clunk to the floor in a way that suggests it never took off from the ground despite the wings stuck on it that atmospheric ships have. 

You wait for a while but no one comes out. 

“This is BORING.” Vriska finally declares and puts a hand to her temple. 

“No, don’t-” you say uselessly. 

“Huh, I can’t control them but they are asleep now.” she says and steps through the force field and wanders into the ship with Terezi right after her. 

“Why do I bother?” you mutter to yourself. 

What the two of them come out with is a pair of aliens. They’re a whole new species that you don’t know and the ship’s incomplete records have no recollection of. Obviously they have had contact with the empire or else where did they get the ship’s parts from? You have them kept in a neat little room that’s carefully designed so as to give them as few weapons as possible. Their many weapons are confiscated and the rest of their sylladexes examined with care by Terezi. 

“Don’t you think you should handcuff them at least?” Kanaya asks as you crouch by the loungeplank and run your fingers over the soft pink skin of the one with long hair. 

“I have Sollux, if he needs to hold someone down he absolutely can. I know that.” you tell her idly and pick at the alien’s hair in its strange whitish yellow colour. No horns though, so strange. They look like trolls is the thing, more than the other alien species you’ve known. These aliens though are like trolls but with different colours and no horns, they’re still vaguely troll shaped. It’s weird. 

“Karkat, phrasing.” Kanaya laughs softly and Sollux snorts in amusement behind you. 

You replay your last statement and its implications about the things that Sollux may or may not do with his psionics. Curse Kanaya and her entirely correct interpretation of your words. 

“Fuck you.” you curse at her without any real feeling. 

“Mmmn.” the long haired one murmurs sleepily and you perk up. 

“If they’re waking up maybe don’t be so-” Sollux cuts himself off as the other alien springs into motion, lunging for you in your split second of distraction. Sollux catches them though and dangles them upside down where they thrash in impotent rage. 

“Oh. Hi, thanks for the nice welcome. Do you speak Alternian?” you ask, standing up and keeping out of the creature’s range. 

“Go fuck yourself, troll!” it snarls at you in perfect Alternian, even if the syllables do sound a little weird out of its alien mouth. 

“Well, that answers that.” you sigh. 

“If that one’s woken up the other one will too no doubt, I’ll just pick them up too. Unless you want the jumpscare.” Sollux says dryly and the longer haired one starts to levitate. 

“Don’t touch her! I’ll kill you and your fucking Empress!” the first one threatens you. So the other one is a her. 

“I won’t hurt her.” you tell them and then process the words they just said.

“Empress?” you repeat. 

The alien frowns behind dark pointy glasses and mouths something for a moment. 

“Empress.” they repeat. “Your fish bitch leader. Tall, big hair, evil.” 

“Oh.” Kanaya says softly.

“Her Imperious Condescension.” you nod and the alien bares its blunt little teeth in what you’re going to read as anger. 

“She’s dead.” you say. 

“Whuh?” the long haired one mumbles and flails to right herself in Sollux’s levitating hold. She opens her eyes, oh they’re pink on white, how interesting. She sees you and gasps, her hands fumble for weapons she no longer possesses and she scowls when she realises that she’s been disarmed. 

“We’ll never talk!” she shouts at you. 

You wonder if you should point out that the other one has already been talking a bit. 

“FUCK THE EMPRESS, DEATH TO THE EMPRESS!” the girl adds furiously. 

“Hell yeah, death to the Empress. You’re kind of late to that party though.” Sollux says with dry amusement. 

The two aliens look confused and then suspicious. 

“I killed her, took her crown. I’m the Emperor now.” you explain and tap the crown on your head and the thing in the back of your mind that’s honestly never really done you any harm shifts in displeasure at your claw ringing on its surface. 

The two aliens exchange a look, seemingly they hadn’t expected this. 

“Death to you then.” the first one with the sunglasses says but he sounds a little uncertain. 

“I’m sorry, I don’t know your names. Sollux can you put them down? I’m Karkat, what are your names and what ARE you? Where are you from?” you ask and Sollux does set them down but he doesn’t let go. 

“You conquered our planet and you don’t know?!” the one with glasses demands. 

“Oh, no. I’ve not taken any planets, I don’t do that. The Empress must have but we lost a lot of records in the takeover. Whatever she did I’m very sorry for it.” you apologise, crouching down to look at them again. 

“I’m… I’m Roxy. This is Dirk.” the girl- Roxy, says. 

“Roxy!” Dirk protests. 

“Ignore him. What do you mean you lost records?” Roxy asks, so the other one is a him. Ok. 

“Well, we had a helmsman but that’s barbaric. We couldn’t save him so we had to put him out of his misery, sorry Sollux, I know you hate it.” you murmur, looking back at him. 

“It’s fine.” Sollux mumbles, it’s not. He has bad dreams about it. 

“But that whole process caused a few glitches and my predecessor was pretty shit at record keeping anyway, especially with things she considered classified so we lost a lot of things. We’ve mislaid a few planets that we’ve been rediscovering in the sweeps since, I guess your planet was one of them.” you explain. 

“That’s why she didn’t come back then, because you killed her and then didn’t know about us?” Roxy asks. 

“I assume so. So what are you, where are you from, what happened?” you ask. 

“One thing at a time, Karkat.” Kanaya reminds you. 

“Uh, in order: humans, Earth, she basically destroyed our planet and enslaved us.” Roxy explains. 

“That’s awful.” Kanaya says softly. 

“I’m so sorry, if I’d known I would have come to fix things right away. We don’t do slavery anymore, I’m very firm on that.” you tell them both. 

“You want us to believe that you’ll just fix what she did?” Dirk sneers. 

“I can understand why you wouldn’t.” you nod. 

“Sollux, trace the path their ship took here back to their homeworld. To… Earth. I want to see what the situation is there and what we can do. Get Tavros to get his ship together with a basic aid starter. Kanaya can you get these two scanned so that we know how humans work, I don’t want to accidentally hurt anyone.” you start listing out. 

“Wait, no, you can’t go to Earth!” Dirk protests. 

“I have to fix the things she did. Don’t worry I won’t hurt anyone.” you tell them and sweep out of the room. You want to go see their ship and find out more about them, Sollux is right behind you as you walk. 

“Humans. Hugh-mans, hue’muns? Damnit.” you mutter as you go. 

“Computer play back what the alien girl said her species was for me, please.” you say, looking up. Obligingly Roxy’s voice echoes back the word, humans. 

“Thank you, computer.” you tell it and mumble the new word to yourself a little more. 

“Um.” a nervous voice says near you and you look around. There’s a new recruit on your ship, same kind of build as Sollux and a goldblood too, only his eyes are orange and green. He looks really young and to your shame you can’t remember his name but you do know he was on the latest ship of recruits here and he works in astronavigation. 

“Yes?” you ask, deliberately not saying his name. 

“Sorry, His Imploring Compassion, Emperor Vantas, Sir.” the young private bows dutifully. 

“Just… just ‘Sir’ is more than enough. Wait, his what? People aren’t calling me that are they?” you gasp as the words hit you. The private straightens up worriedly and Sollux glares at him. 

“Do you know how long I’d been keeping that one from him so I could drop that on him at just the right moment? Thanks a lot.” Sollux bitches and the young goldblood looks mortified. 

“Yes, they do call you that.” Sollux confirms.

Aw, no. It’s nice enough of course and you’d rather have that epithet than your predecessor’s but it’s so… nice. Nice isn’t cool or inspiring is it? At the back of your mind the lazy unknowable force of your crown stirs and halfheartedly tries to tempt you with visions of people on their knees, quaking in terror at your might. Yeah, no thanks. It does that non corporal equivalent of shugging and rolling back over to sleep. 

You had of course told your friends about the sinister crown and shared your suspicions of its powers, all of which certainly fitted the unusual gifts the former Empresses had shown before you. Also no one could find any art of any Empress without a crown and no mention was ever made of old ones being destroyed or new ones made. Yours looks very different from when you put it on. No longer a gaudy gold but now it’s a simple and highly polished platinum band that gleams in your hair and somehow never dusts, tarnishes or shows so much as a fingerprint. You’ve all tried taking it off but it just won’t come and you went through too much trouble to get here to decapitate yourself just to remove a crown. The best advice your friends can give you is just try to stay a good person, they’ll keep an eye on you for that, and don’t make any more deals. You hadn’t meant to make the last one though…

“What did you want?” Sollux asks him. 

“Oh. Sorry, I just- you do know that it’s an AI, right? It’s just a glorified search engine, it doesn’t really think. You don’t need to thank it.” the private says. 

“There’s no reason I shouldn’t either.” you say, slightly flustered. 

“I think he’s worried that it’ll somehow become sentient and he’ll offend it by not being thankful for its work.” Sollux grins teasingly. You hate him sometimes, even more when he’s right. 

“I have work to do.” you announce and march off to where you left the alien ship. 

Surprising no one Equius is already inspecting their ship with great care, assisted by Terezi. You walk over to them but Sollux catches up with you before you get there. 

“I was only teasing.” Sollux says, believably contrite as his claws find purchase on the semi fancy royal robes that Kanaya insisted on making you. 

“Tough, I’ll never forgive you.” you lie, attempting to keep walking. Mysteriously you’re floating now. He pulls you back against his chest and squeezes you. Your bloodpusher flutters and in your mind there’s a flicker of interest. Your crown very obviously likes Sollux, he’s as close to what the crown considers to be real vice as you get. 

“His Imploring Compassion is a pretty accurate title, you just keep asking people to be nice and eventually they give in or I guess die out.” he tells you sweetly. 

“Shut up.” you grumble, squirming out of his grip with your face hot. He laughs but lets you go. You’re the goddamn Emperor of your whole species and a guardian to or in alliance with several more on top of that, you refuse to be picked up and cuddled like a stray meowbeast. Especially in public. 

You march your way over to the slapdash ship and yeah from this close up you really can see how it’s just parts of others stuck together. Terezi sticks her head out of the door and grins at you.

“This is all very exciting.” Terezi says cheerfully. 

“Oh no.” you groan. Terezi announcing excitement like that inspires the kind of dread that ‘hey look, no hands’ might in other people, this is a bad idea and something bad will happen. 

“What do you know from them?” Terezi asks and leads you into the ship with Sollux following. 

“Their names are Roxy and Dirk, Dirk’s the one with the eyewear. He’s a he and Roxy’s a she. They’re humans from Earth. It seems like the Empress took them over and then abandoned the project, I would guess she came back here to try to stop our takeover. Then records got lost and…” you sigh and wave your hands to indicate the ether that so many files vanish into. 

“How long did it take them to get here? This thing doesn’t look very fast and no way either of them powered it.” Sollux says as he climbs into the ship as well and starts to have a look around. 

“It’s using a very primitive nuclear fuel system among other things.” Equius explains. 

“Yeah, I noticed some solar cells on the outside.” you agree and Sollux gives you a look that’s distressingly pitying. Stupid book stuck in your memory forever. 

“So they can’t have been going fast, and look at this.” Terezi says and leads you over to one wall. You lean over a loungeplank and peer at a board that’s stuck above it. There’s pictures of the two humans on the wall but in some of them they look so little. 

“How long have they been on this thing? It’s just the two of them, isn’t it?” you ask. 

“There’s got to be a computer system.” Sollux says with a frown. 

“Yeah, but I can’t read anything it’s saying. Whatever operating system this thing runs on it’s all, what did you say Karkat? Human?” Equius says and you nod. 

“Like hell, let me see.” Sollux says, his pride obviously wounded as he elbows his way past Equius to the controls up front. 

“It is an Alternian ship, more or less. Maybe it has a proper computer system that works verbally.” you muse. 

“But it’s obviously been modified and it’s not your ship.” Terezi points out. 

“If there’s any part of it that’s still Alternian it has to answer to me, it’s made up of bits of what are… technically, by right, mine. Even if I don’t act that way it’s still true. Even your ship is still technically mine.” you point out. 

“You just know better than to say things like that.” Terezi says with far too many teeth in that smile. 

“No shit.” you mutter. 

“Uh, hello ship is there a computer system on here?” you ask, looking up again. 

“There is.” a voice comes in smooth Alternian. 

“Fuck yeah! What’s the name of this ship?” you ask it. 

“Trojan horse.” the computer tells you, dipping into a language you don’t understand. You suppose they would name a ship they made something in their own tongue. 

“Trow Jan Horrse? Ok, thank you. How long have you been flying to get to here, Trow Jan Horrse?” you say unsteadily. 

“It’s Trojan Horse. Also that’s the ship’s name, not mine.” the voice says a little sharply or maybe you’re imagining it. 

“Shit, I’m sorry. What’s your name, if you have a name I don’t want to just call you computer or mangle your ship’s name.” you apologise. 

The ship pauses for a moment or two, a little longer than you would have thought reasonable but it does speak again. 

“Hal. I’m called Hal. This ship has been flying for nineteen years, which is approximately eight point eight sweeps.” Hal says and your eyes widen. 

“How… how old are Dirk and Roxy?” you ask worriedly. 

“Splitting the difference between their ages they are, on average, one perigee older than that.” Hal says. 

You sit down on the loungeplank, or more accurately your legs give out and you fall on it. 

“Were there… other humans on this ship then? Or a lusus? Wigglers can’t pilot a ship!” you exclaim. 

“No other humans, we could only support life for two. There was a robot that cared for them when they were small and the Alternian AI that was-” Hal stops. 

“There were no other humans. Humans do not have lusii and the ship self pilots.” it finishes. 

“That’s awful. Sorry, I mean thank you Hal. It’s not your fault the answers are so…” you sigh. You want to know what drove a species to shoot wigglers into space on what you can only guess was a mission to kill your predecessor. Except you already know. Desperation and vengeance. 

“KK stop being polite to the computer and make it show me a translation so I can use the goddamn keyboard, it’s pitiable of you but it’s just a program.” Sollux shouts down to you from up front. 

“Hal, you’re a modification of the computing system that was on here originally, right? Or an addition at least?” you ask. 

“An addition is an accurate statement.” Hal says, in a neutral voice. 

“So you read Alternian as well as speak it?” you ask. 

“I can read and speak thousands of languages, Alternian included.” Hal informs you. 

“Could you send Sollux, the goldblood up there who just shouted down to me, a translation of the keyboard or help him navigate through your systems?” you ask. 

“You’re very polite for a tyrant, you know.” Hal says and your mouth falls open a little in shock. Terezi hoots with laughter. 

“I… what?” you say quietly. 

“Polite, for a tyrant. That’s what you are, aren’t you? You aren’t elected and my perusal of your databases show me that you gained your position by slitting the Empress’ throat, thanks for that by the way. I could very easily shut the door and suck all the air out of here, that’d fulfil the mission of killing the leader of the trolls.” Hal says in a voice that can only be described as nonchalant. 

Sollux and Equius rush into the room you’re in. 

“I wouldn’t recommend that.” you tell Hal with some concern. 

“Mm, yes. Sollux Captor’s records indicate his psionic strength, probably not a smart move.” Hal agrees. 

“How are you IN MY SYSTEM?!” Sollux snarls. 

“Hal’s not an AI, or not like the ones on the ship, right?” you say in wonder. 

“They’re morons.” Hal scoffs. 

“You’re a real person, right? Not an artificial intelligence but just a person.” you say. 

“It’s a homicidal AI trying to kill us!” Sollux snaps. 

“The door is open still, you know.” Terezi points out but no one listens. 

“It- he- uh, sorry?” you glance up. 

“Oh. He, I suppose.” Hal says. 

“He’s a person even if he is trying to kill us. We’ve all killed people, we’re still people!” you argue back. 

“This doesn’t really seem like the appropriate argument to be having right now if HE intends on killing us.” Equius points out. 

“I’m going to stand outside now.” Terezi sighs and walks out. 

“Besides you don’t want to kill me, I don’t think a crown would fit on you.” you tell Hal. 

“What?” Hal says back. 

“Can you not plan your succession right now?!” Sollux demands. 

“Oh for-” Terezi groans and leans back into the ship and with a swift back and forth manages to nail all of you in the face with her cane. 

“The door is OPEN, he’s not killing anyone! You’re all idiots!” she snaps and Hal laughs wildly from above you all. 

“Terezi Pyrope, you are very fun. Also, I’m fairly sure that if you’d done that to the last Empress you’d be dead by now.” Hal laughs a little more.

“Maybe if I’d pushed the last Empress out of a tree for being a big old nerd when we were kids then I might have got away with that, but she sucked and this big nerd is fine.” Terezi grins. 

Fine. That’s worse than nice.

“I’m embarrassed to know all of you.” Sollux announces. 

“I don’t think I did anything to warrant that.” Equius sniffs haughtily. 

“Kill me now. Hal, can you tell us things about Earth so that we can help when we get there? Climate, biology, that sort of thing. Political climate, that’d be helpful.” you groan. 

“Seeing as how, against all expectations, you seem to actually be sincere and not your predecessor I will share with you what I think you should know. But no one’s getting access to my systems to pry more out of me.” Hal says that last part very sternly. 

“Well surely your system would be your mind, right? That’d be a huge invasion for a sentient person so of course we won’t.” you agree. 

“Well are you going to stay out of MY computer systems since you’ve apparently been sneaking through them?” Sollux asks testily. 

“Nah.” Hal says casually and Sollux hisses in anger. 

“Thank you, Hal.” you tell him instead. 

“You’re welcome.” Hal says, sounding pleased at being thanked in the first place. 

By the time you get to astronavigation and spot the private whose name escapes you again Hal has already sent over a good deal of information. From there you can start handing out work, getting orders in for the right kind of food supplies should you need them, sending food to Roxy and Dirk that you think they can eat. You send an imperial summons for the ‘terniaforming bots, probably the same kind that were used to turn Dirk and Roxy’s formerly watery but temperate planet to a totally flooded ball of water. From your best estimations she was trying to make a world specifically for seadwellers despite the fact that the people currently living there can’t survive underwater. You summon teams of genetic engineers and bid them to follow you, it’ll be hard work reviving the flora and fauna of Earth but you intend to put the damn planet back just how she found it. Better even. 

You give Dirk and Roxy near free reign of the ship, allowed to go almost anywhere as long as there are trolls there to supervise them. Your crew are told to treat them as guests and though the two humans regard all of you with well earned suspicion the perigee long journey back to their planet softens them some. You overhear a familiar alien face recounting a story to the humans about your vacation that went wrong and turned into a revolution. You duck away before you’re seen and self consciously run a finger over the cut over your artificial eye. You were stupid and reckless then but it did earn you some of Sollux’s pity so it was worth it. 

You pause in the hallway and lean against the wall so you’re out of the way and can troll Sollux with that especially sappy thought. It’s true, you’d risk any number of body parts to be with him after all. He’s delightfully flustered by it, you’re grinning to yourself like a tool as you consider going in for the kill by mentioning all the things you wanted before you were together. That always makes him pity you more and it’s a pretty solid way to ensure that you’re not going to be doing much else with your evening from the time you get back to your shared block. 

“Who’re you talking to?” a voice asks in Alternian that doesn’t quite sound right coming out of a throat like that. You jump and look to see Roxy lurking in the doorway watching you. 

“I- uh. It’s nothing.” you say in a hurry, very conscious of the fact that compared to your age these humans aren’t really adults yet. Or if so they’re only barely adults. 

“Well Mr. Emperor, if that is your real name.” Roxy grins.

“What? It’s not, it’s Karkat.” you tell her and her face falls a little. 

“It’s a reference that you obviously wouldn’t get so idk why I made it. ANYWAY, I may have only known one other human in my whole life but we had lots of human movies as well as everything Alternian that Earth ever got so I know someone who’s all lovey-dovey when I see them.” Roxy tells you, slipping back into human language for part of it. 

“Someone who’s all… what?” you ask curiously. 

“Ugh. In love. LOVE. It’s a human thing.” she sighs. 

“Roxy where are- oh.” Dirk says, peering around the door and seeing the two of you. 

“I’m trying to explain love to him.” Roxy says, waving a hand at you. Dirk looks at you skeptically, or at least his mouth is in a thin line. 

“I don’t think he’ll get it.” Dirk says. 

“Try me.” you tell them both. They look at each other and then at you, Roxy grins. 

That’s how you end up on the loungeplank in their ship, staring misty eyed at their second human romance movie of the day, shown on what passes for a TV in their species. You’re clutching a cushion to your chest and trying to control your emotions when Sollux shows up. 

“There you are, what the hell?” Sollux demands with a frown. 

You try to come up with a response but all you can do is cry. Sollux looks startled and comes closer quickly, glaring at the two humans. 

“What did you do to him?” Sollux snarls.

“Forced him to watch trashy movies, that’s all.” Dirk says casually although his body language says he’s ready to fight. 

“Romance movies.” Roxy adds. 

“They’re so happy!” you wail, pointing at the screen and Sollux’s shoulders drop. 

“Seriously?” he sighs at you, despairing. 

“I thought you hated that shit now.” he adds, glancing at the screen. 

“Thuh- this isn’t- it’s not like that. No- no quadrants.” you choke out, wiping your face with your sleeve. You’re absolutely ruining Kanaya’s careful seamwork. You point at the screen and Sollux watches, reading the subtitles. 

On screen Rose is telling Jack that they can’t do this, that they cannot be together because she is ‘engaged’ to the other man Cal that she absolutely does not love. 

“I’m marrying Cal. I love Cal.” she says unconvincingly. 

“Rose,” Jack sighs as he looks at her with hatred and pity both at once, “you’re no picnic. Alright, you’re a spoiled little brat even.” 

“Pitch?” Sollux whispers and you hush him.

“But under that you’re the most amazingly astounding, wonderful girl- woman that I’ve ever known. And-” Jack is cut off by Rose and you can see how Sollux’s eyebrows rise. 

“Flush… pale… Karkat what are-” Sollux says slowly and you put your hand over his mouth. Rose is protesting again and Jack is trying to say his bit. He’s trying to explain that things keep them apart, their social standing and all but that’s not the message you care about here, that’s not why you’re crying like you’re a kid watching romcoms and not fitting what you see at all. 

But this, oh, his irritation is pitchlike, his adoration flush and his protectiveness is every inch pale. Not changing from one to another but all at once, mixed up, stupid, contraditory. Just like you. 

“They’re in love, that’s what humans have. Love, it’s all of it.” you sniffle. 

“Love.” Sollux repeats. 

“Trolls don’t do that, right? It’s all quadrants for you guys isn’t it?” Roxy asks uncertainly. 

“For… yeah. I need to borrow him.” Sollux says and pulls you to your feet, the humans seem deeply confused but Sollux is determined to pull you back to your blocks that make up your little hive within the ship. You’re still sniffling as you walk, red tears tracked down your face and everyone you pass looks deeply concerned for you. Sollux doesn’t say anything until you’re safely within your block. 

“They do what you do.” he says simply and you nod, tears spilling down your face. There’s a whole planet of people just like you and you could have so easily never known. 

“There’s a word for it.” you say thickly. 

“Love.” Sollux says once more, wrapping his tongue around the alien word. 

“It’s love, I love you, we’re in love, you are loved.” you say, running the variants of the word that you know out for him to hear. 

“Shh.” Sollux tells you softly and wipes your face off. You’re probably kind of gross, he probably doesn’t want to- oh well, never mind then because he’s kissing you anyway. 

“I guess I love you then.” he says easily and just having a WORD for it hurts in the very best way. 

“Yeah, I… I love you.” you tell him thickly and nod. 

“You’re not doing anything until tomorrow.” you tell him and pull him back into your respiteblock. 

“Are you asking because I have-” he starts. 

“Telling you. Your schedule is officially, imperially, cleared. I need you right here.” you say a little breathlessly because you’re IN LOVE. It’s a thing! It’s A THING!!!!

“I can do that.” Sollux grins. 

The crown on your head pays attention to the rest of your evening as you act possessive, selfish, lustful. Sollux can bring out all of that in you but neither of you are inclined to complain. 

It takes nearly a perigee for you to get close to Earth, their galaxy swims up close to you as you come up and Dirk and Roxy stand there watching the screens. 

“This isn’t what my mom had in mind, I don’t think.” Roxy says softly. 

You’ve watched enough human movies now to know that a mom is like a lusus but they genetically made you. 

“Or my Bro.” Dirk agrees. 

Bro being short for brother, a hatchmate of the same mom or dad. You’re learning these things. 

“They thought you’d be fighting us?” you guess. 

“They died fighting the Empress, killing the puppet government they left in charge and attacking her personally. That’s why we were chosen to come after her, no one was going to raise us anyway and the Earth had gone to shit. Miss English already had the ship built so I guess it just made sense.” Dirk shrugs. 

“What if there’s no one there, what if they couldn’t survive?” Roxy whispers as the ship skirts close to their solar system. 

Dirk has nothing to say to that and instead catches her hand in his. 

“KK.” Sollux calls quietly as he comes across the room to you. You look around and see him beckoning you over so you leave the two humans be for the moment, it seems like they’re having a moment anyway. 

“You need to be prepared for this to be bad, you know.” Sollux warns you. 

“I know, they said-” you begin. 

“No, I know that you know. But whenever we find a world that the Empress fucked up it tears you up, like you could have overthrown her earlier than you did and because you didn’t it’s all your fault. You always do this, so just- just try not to, ok? We’re here to fix things.” Sollux tells you, all assertively pale and sweet. 

“I don’t think that.” you huff. 

You absolutely do think that, you had already been thinking it in fact. Sollux is entirely unconvinced and zaps you slightly with his psionics as a mild punishment for lying to him, it’s enough to make you shout in shock and have several people look over curiously but it hardly hurts. 

“Asshole.” you hiss at him and shove him. 

“Uh-huh. Hey, that looks promising.” Sollux says, pointing at the screen. 

“It’s third from the sun, there was a show about that.” Roxy says. The navigation technicians sweep the sensors around and bring up a zoomed in image of the right planet. A little blue ball in space, wreathed in fluffy white clouds. 

“No ice caps.” Dirk says quietly as you come closer. 

“They have satellites, working ones.” Greateye notes as she fiddles with the controls at her station, she used to be on your ship when you were just a pirate and now she runs this whole department. 

“Settlements, look.” she beams and throws an image up on a screen. Floating cities, loads of them all over the place. Dirk and Roxy heave a joint sigh of relief and it’s only a moment that you get to enjoy their second hand happiness before alarms start blaring everywhere. 

“They’re firing on us, warheads of something.” Greateye announces. 

“Nuclear probably! Can this ship stand that?” Dirk asks in a hurry. 

“I’m not waiting to find out.” Sollux says and holds out his hands like a conductor about to start a concert. 

On the screen the missiles that were on their way to you halt where they are before Sollux pulls them up and away from both you and Earth. He balls them up together and and explosion flashes through space, harmlessly away from all of you. Dirk and Roxy are staring at Sollux in awe and a few of the goldbloods in the room are looking on with something like envy on their faces. 

“You should probably just say hi.” Sollux says. 

“Right, Greateye can you… actually, fuck it can you just get me into anything with a screen on that planet? Thanks.” you say. Greateye looks a little stressed and takes a few moments, eventually Sollux leans over and taps a few things for her. She nods at you and the screen before you reflects yourself, you take a second to make sure that your hair isn’t doing anything desperately stupid before hitting the button to start broadcasting. You put on what you hope is a reassuring smile and start talking. 

“Hello, Earth. I am Emperor Karkat Vantas, my predecessor was Her Imperious Condescension but she’s dead now. I understand she took over and damaged your planet and until just recently I didn’t know about this at all. But your human children Dirk and Roxy, uh, can you two come here?” you ask, glancing away at them and waving them over. 

Dirk and Roxy look a little surprised but wander into frame anyway. 

“They found me and after we cleared up the leadership misunderstanding they told me- us- all about your problems. We’re here to help.” you say. 

Roxy says something quickly in her human language and Dirk laughs, or smothers his laugh a little too late. You’re getting to grips a bit with their language, it helps that Hal is live subtitling everything they show you and your languages share a lot of grammatical similarities. It’s not enough for you to understand what she just said though. 

“It’s an old joke about aliens, ‘we come in peace’ is how it translates.” Dirk explains. 

“Oh. But we do come in peace.” you frown and Roxy doubles over giggling. 

“Incoming transmission.” Greateye says and sends it over to you. 

The screen changes to show you a human man sat behind a desk with several flags behind him, one of which you recognise as the flag for the American country. 

“Emperor Karkat Vantas.” the man says, his Alternian a little stiff and accented but very intelligible all the same. 

“Holy shit it’s former president Barack Obama, I thought you were killed by clowns.” Dirk gasps. 

“Ah, no, your brother saved my life. Dave Strider was my hero, we lost a good man when he died. Is this- is Emperor Vantas’ peace message sincere to your knowledge?” the man asks. 

“He’s-” Dirk looks at you then takes his shades off and switches to a fast and accented English that you don’t understand just yet. Roxy smacks him in the arm and says something of her own, the president nods. 

“I don’t know what they just said to you but, really, we want to help. I want to make things right.” you say hopefully. 

You really do. You’re so many lightyears away from where you hatched, where you accepted your unnameable feelings for what they were. But now you’re right above a planet that came up with the word for what you feel and you’ll do all that you can to save it, not just because it’s right or because they didn’t deserve what the Empress did to them but because they’re just like you. They love too. 

“Well, Emperor Vantas, I think we can see about making that happen.” the president smiles.


End file.
